7 October 2025 - Executive Director and Chief Innovation Officer at CISL, James Cole, reflects on this year’s Climate Week NYC, where political divisions contrasted with the determination of business leaders, innovators and investors. Amid scepticism from some governments, companies showcased practical, scalable solutions—signalling that the transition to a low-carbon economy is being driven by collaboration, innovation and bold leadership.
This year’s Climate Week NYC unfolded against a backdrop of polarised political responses toward climate commitments and decarbonisation.
US President Donald Trump’s nearly hour-long intervention at the UN General Assembly expressing climate scepticism only made China’s historic first commitment to emissions reductions all the more notable, if not sufficient. The European Union for its part set out its direction of travel but wasn’t able to confirm a final climate target for this year’s scheduled UN climate summit.
As I noted in my opening at a breakthrough innovation event with corporates, startups and investors – the rate of global cleantech patent registrations doubled between 2007-21 with 70% of the patent growth attributed to China and 16% to the EU.
Is there correlation or causation between nations and trading blocs which take the climate transition seriously, and their pace of scientific discovery, innovation and commercialisation related to a fossil-free future?
UK Climate and Energy Minister Ed Miliband put this a different way to business leaders at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's (CISL) joint Corporate Leaders Group and We Mean Business Coalition roundtable, saying: ‘the UK is putting Net Zero at the heart of its security and economic agenda’.
As President Trump and others give new voice to old arguments against climate action, business faces a complex and challenging landscape: how to invest boldly in growing, new, low-carbon industries, innovate at pace, and take clear public positions without becoming entangled in partisan debate.
Yet, the energy across the city was a reminder that, internationally, business is already investing, and that collaboration and leadership from the private sector remain essential to scaling and accelerating solutions.
Thousands of leaders from business, academia, and civil society gathered with determination to scale innovation, build resilience, and reshape value chains. If in previous years, Climate Week has felt like a festival of corporate climate commitments and shiny projects, this year some of the glitz and high flown commitments have gone and what remains was revealed as clear, concrete and credible.
The mood on the ground was one of urgency and creativity – with discussions and examples drawing from real world action in corporate supply chains. Even amid political pushback, business leaders demonstrated by their deeds that acting on climate is not just a moral imperative anymore—it is a driver of competitiveness, resilience, and long-term value creation for business and society.
CISL played a central role throughout the week, convening partners, sharing insights, and highlighting how innovation tested in practice and scaled through collaboration can accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy.
The power of ‘uncommon’ and ‘bold’ collaboration
At a Chanel-hosted Goals House event, CISL joined leaders from business, civil society, and NGOs to explore how collaboration can drive tangible impact. The discussion went beyond general calls for cooperation, focusing instead on examples across value chains and geographies.
Our partnership with Chanel exemplifies this approach, combining leadership development with innovation efforts -delivered together with our partners at the Institute for Manufacturing and the Judge Business School - to tackle complex challenges. The message was clear: uncommon collaborations can pilot new ways of working and lay the foundations for sustainable markets – but ultimately, it’s a leadership agenda and executive education remains more important than ever.
This theme continued in a panel with L’Oréal, where we further explored the need for radical collaboration. Companies must intentionally build their collaborative capacity, moving beyond their own value chains to unlock innovation – working with corporate peers, academics, innovators and communities.
Competing alone will not deliver the transformation required. This is why L’Oreal have committed $100m to investing in sustainability solutions over the next 5 years, working with CISL’s Canopy to run a startup accelerator and commercial pilot programme seeking commercially relevant solutions on water, energy, resource use and biobased materials in L’Oreal’s beauty products and supply chains.
Innovation to scale solutions
At the Business for Nature “Future Forward for Nature” event, CISL underscored that pioneering projects and market-driven solutions are key to nature-positive outcomes. CISL has long worked with business, policymakers, and finance to build leadership that reshapes economies for people, nature, and climate.
Finance for nature and generally aligning policy action on climate and nature were seen as important topics to be taken forwards to the Climate COP in Belem.
Built-environment resilience was another priority. In a panel with Rockwool and Danish Industry, discussions highlighted how retrofits and sustainable construction can transform cities and communities.
The UK’s Lord Marvin Rees highlighted the role of cities in delivering global climate ambition – citing the Bristol City Leap as an example of financial innovation and foresightedness by a local authority. Place-based piloting and validating solutions can set new norms for energy efficiency and climate-resilient infrastructure. CISL’s Living Lab offers a collaborative platform to accelerate adoption of these innovations in Cambridgeshire and beyond.
The need for clear policies and regulatory certainty
Policy ambition and certainty emerged as a recurring theme.
At the Ibero-American Business Network for Green Growth (IABN) reception, co-hosted with The Carbon Trust, CISL’s IABN launched a business statement on COP30 calling on governments to create the conditions for an inclusive, prosperous and nature-positive energy transition in support of the global goal of tripling renewables by 2030.
The event featured remarks by the UK’s newly confirmed Climate Minister Katie White on the importance of international and regional collaboration and showcased strong business leadership in the energy transition, even in politically challenging contexts.
As part of CISL’s continued collaboration with the UK government, CLG UK engaged in various high-level activities on UK energy security, transition-enabled growth opportunities and international climate leadership with UK government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, Secretary Ed Miliband, Climate Minister Katie White, and UK Trade Commissioner for North America and Consul General to New York Oliver Christian.
CLG Europe and The B Team also convened a dialogue with EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, where CEOs from European and international businesses reinforced the need for regulatory clarity, long-term planning, and sectoral collaboration, sharing examples of positive investors they had or were making – and reinforcing business and investor EU to set a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Target of at least 90% by 2040.
As a founding partner of We Mean Business Coalition, CISL further convened a roundtable ahead of COP30 in Belém. Leaders, including UK Secretary of State Ed Miliband and Brazilian Climate Minister Ana Toni, underscored that business must step up - not to set more targets, but to show solutions and vocally demand the enabling conditions to scale them.
Conclusion
Across Climate Week NYC, one theme was consistent: the real economy is moving on with the transition and business leaders are stepping up. From advancing the circular economy to supporting renewable energy, companies are proving that innovation, collaboration, and bold leadership drive real progress. CISL’s role was to highlight these actions, facilitate dialogue between policy makers, companies, investor and innovators, and showcase pathways to scale.
Collaboration, innovation, and leadership are not optional—they are essential.
