Lessons from New York Climate Week
Last week, the Nature Broking team attended Climate Week NYC 2026 and hosted our first-ever events in New York.
Bringing together investors, corporates, project developers and industry leaders, our events created a space for candid discussion about the opportunities and challenges facing the natural capital sector.
We arrived asking a question: what value does Climate Week NYC offer a UK-based natural capital business? We left with a clear answer. Over four days, the team met hundreds of people, from long-standing partners to existing clients to the organisations shaping the future of nature markets.
In meetings and beyond, conversations returned to four themes that we believe will shape the next phase of growth for natural capital markets:
Speak the language of finance. Conversations are still too often framed in ESG terminology that fails to connect with CFOs and mainstream business. Every business assesses risk and opportunity. To accelerate progress, we need to see a shift towards the language of finance. This includes reframing investments in climate and nature as building resilience, reducing risk reduction and creating opportunities, such as capitalising credits as assets on the balance sheet. Ultimately, organisations need data-backed business cases that can stand up to scrutiny in the boardroom.
The direction of travel is clear. Politics is less influential on business decisions than the headlines suggest. From our view, we are seeing that companies are continuing to take a long-term view and invest in decarbonisation programmes, recognising that climate and nature-related risks are increasingly becoming business risks. Whether or not driven by regulation, the direction of travel remains clear.
The UK is well placed to lead. Carbon markets are steadily being integrated into the financial system and compliance markets. Our conversations in New York reflected a belief that the wider industry sees the UK as a world leader at this intersection. With strong regulatory oversight, a large financial sector and world-leading expertise, the UK is uniquely placed to drive capital at scale towards climate and nature solutions. This represents a significant opportunity for UK PLC.
Collaboration accelerates progress. Climate change is too complex to solve in isolation, and Climate Week was a powerful reminder of the value of collaboration. From conversations walking the High Line, to dinners with industry partners, to open exchanges at our events under Chatham House Rules. Compressing months of relationship-building into just four days was invaluable, forming partnerships that will help drive meaningful progress for nature and climate.
