Brett Sago
Director, HSES Legal Services, and Global Product Stewardship & Regulatory Affairs
Eastman

Brett Sago is the Director of the Health, Safety, Environment and Security (HSES) section of Eastman’s Law Department and the Global Product Stewardship & Regulatory Affairs (Global PSRA) function. In this capacity, he coordinates Eastman’s high-performing HSES attorneys’ compliance counseling, legislative/regulatory advocacy, training, due diligence, privileged investigations, and enforcement defense. In September 2023, he assumed responsibility for Eastman’s Global PSRA function. The Global PSRA team includes technical experts in the product regulatory and toxicology fields around the world that help ensure Eastman’s compliance with complex existing and proposed laws, regulations, and policies governing chemical and polymer manufacturing, labeling, handling, and uses, among other things.

Brett advises Eastman’s Board, Executive Team, Businesses, Government Relations, Corporate Communications, Community Affairs, Sustainability/ESG and Global HSES teams regarding HSES and PSRA legal regimes, assessing the impact of proposed legislation and regulation and crafting changes. He has led Eastman’s HSES-related buyer/seller due diligence and contract negotiations for numerous acquisitions and divestitures. Brett is a leader on multiple intra-company teams including those focused on advocacy and auditing, sustainability, climate change, and more recently Eastman circular economy platform where he is advocating for the acceptance of solvolysis and thermolysis based recycling technologies and the mass balance allocation of recycle content. He enjoys mediating communications gaps and helping develop frameworks that maximize manufacturing and business objectives while assuring compliance and the protection of human health and the environment.

Brett is a 1993 graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and obtained his JD, with honors, from Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1998. While at Tulane, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, received a Certificate in Environmental Law and was a member of the Tulane Moot Court Board. Following law school, Brett practiced environmental law and litigation for five years at a firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is admitted to practice law in North Carolina and Tennessee. He is married, has two children, and resides in Kingsport, Tennessee.