At Climate Week NYC 2026, participants will come together to find new ways to improve our response to the challenges of our time. To discuss better climate policies that give regulatory clarity for companies. To think of new ideas for mobilizing climate capital at scale. To accelerate corporate action that creates business value and sustainability progress. And to work on solutions to apply AI responsibly.
The appetite to discuss complex topics seems undiminished: the 2026 edition of Climate Week NYC will draw over 100,000 people and feature more than 1000 events.
ERM sessions at Climate Week NYC will build from the four themes below. Please click here to see our full program of events.
Trust is essential for creating and protecting business value in times of transformation, whether it is transitioning to a low-carbon economy, or the integration of AI in every sphere.
Unfortunately, transformations can also erode trust. According to the Edelman trust barometer, seven in 10 people around the world feel that leaders in business, government and media are not trustworthy, up from 60% in 2021. Just 32% think their children will be better off.
The growing backlash against data centers demonstrates the business value of trust in various ways. Proactive engagement with local communities on the impact on local resources is now crucial to building new data centers. ERM’s whitepaper Turning bottlenecks into advantage: future proofing the AI value chain, explores how focusing on sustainability can create better outcomes.
Data center resistance is also driven by anxiety about the potential effects of AI on work, education, cyber security, and information. A recent global survey reveals that 40% of people think AI will negatively affect the job market, compared to 30% who see AI as a positive factor.
Worries are further fueled by regular predictions of mass job losses. To restore trust, companies must convince employees that integrating AI benefits them as well as the company. ERM and WBCSD's A Business Leader’s Guide to a Just Climate Transition addresses this topic.
ERM will explore the theme of trust and its vital importance during transformations in multiple interactive sessions during Climate Week NYC 2026, including:
Whether negative sustainability impacts of AI outweigh its potential to accelerate sustainability progress will be a major point of debate in New York. However, virtually everyone agrees on one thing: the use of AI in business will increase.
A responsible approach to AI creates value in three ways. It means using AI where it has the most added value, preventing waste of tokens, energy and other resources. Responsible AI also ensures that sustainability considerations are embedded into every decision that AI supports, securing future resilience. Lastly, responsible focus encourages development of AI-solutions that specifically target opportunities that cut costs and increase revenue, while also improving sustainability performance. For more on this topic read our recent articles, The state of AI in health and safety and Reimagining the EHS function.
The challenge to integrate AI in a responsible way that adds value to all stakeholders will be covered in several interactive sessions, including:
Dried up waterways in Europe, a glacier collapse in Nepal causing a devastating debris flow and flash flood, and Indonesian forest fires poisoning the air across Southeast Asia.
Due to such extreme weather events, adaptation measures are climbing the corporate strategic agenda. In a recent extreme weather survey, eight out of 10 international companies said they had suffered operational disruptions in the last five years. Virtually all now take some form of adaptation measures. And for good reason, the average annual insured loss caused by extreme weather events is now estimated at US$171 billion per year, up from US$59 billion in 2012.
On the mitigation side, a growing number of companies are reconsidering their climate impact goals. With 2030 getting close, they are signaling that emission reduction targets set earlier are unattainable and require a reset, flagging high costs, lack of capital and insufficient return on investment as the main reasons for doing so.
To illustrate: 84% of S&P 500 companies have mitigation targets for 2030 or 2040, but just 42% have lower Scope 1 carbon emissions compared to 2021. Only a quarter are confident they will meet their original targets.
Companies see reducing Scope 3 impact as the thorniest issue. However, a revised supply chain strategy could improve both adaptation and mitigation performance, such as reducing Scope 3 emissions and preventing value chain disruptions. This would improve short-term as well as long-term resilience. For more read our article Scope 3 – from strategy to action to deliver value.
How companies can reassess mitigation goals without losing credibility or halting progress will be topic of discussion in a handful interactive sessions including:
Quantification of the return on investment (ROI) of sustainability action is moving further into the mainstream. For example, more companies are embedding sustainability criteria in decisions around capex allocation and R&D budgets. According to a recent global Morgan Stanley survey, 63% of companies do just that, up from 51% in 2025.
Secondly, specific sustainability investments are now expected to pass the same financial exam as any other investment. This requires quantification of the ROI to determine if they would meet the company criteria. 70% of respondents in the Morgan Stanley survey claim that calculating the ROI of investments in sustainability action is just as easy as for traditional investments.
Additionally, corporate motivation to invest in sustainability action seems to have shifted. In a recent global C-suite survey, half of the respondents ranked short- to medium-term financial benefits from cost savings and increased revenue as their top incentive for sustainability investments.
Companies can leverage these financial benefits to boost resilience. For example, sustainable products often sell at a price premium initially, but this typically erodes over time. This gives companies a limited window to convert the price premium into a lasting market share premium. For more on how to do this, read Greenium – how to turn sustainability into an enduring driver of enterprise value.
Increased resilience through structural sustainability-related improvements, such as lower costs, increased market share, and better risk mitigation, also leads to a higher enterprise value. Investors may reward this by accepting a lower cost of equity when they invest.
ERM will cover the growing role of robustly quantified ROI in the selection of sustainability projects in several interactive sessions, including:
Climate Week is upon us. What we learn will fuel our work for the year ahead. The ERM team and I are looking forward to engaging with other leaders who are eager to make progress. See you there.
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