Climate Week NYC: Resilience, Pragmatism, and the Future of Climate Capital

Climate Week NYC once again convened thousands of leaders from around the world to take stock of progress in the climate transition and chart what comes next. This year’s gathering was marked by urgency, pragmatism, and a focus on how innovation can scale in a more complex global environment.

The S2G team joined panels, roundtables, and side events throughout the week, engaging with investors, operators, entrepreneurs, corporates, and policymakers. A clear takeaway: While the scale of the crisis is daunting, the appetite for solutions is stronger than ever. Capital is moving, technologies are advancing, and customers from households to multinational corporations are demanding progress.

Our team left New York with insights that reflect the shifting tone of the climate conversation. Optimism remains, but it is more grounded and shaped by today’s economic realities. Below, members of the S2G team share their takeaways from the week.

Grounding Innovation in Market Realities

“Instead of untethered optimism, the tone of conversations this year was very much cautious optimism and pragmatism around the reality of supporting innovation that will result in cost-competitive technologies. There is an acknowledgement that the macro environment into which companies are selling into has changed and the pitch to customers needs to be different to see traction, even for ardent supporters of the climate agenda.”

– Priyanka Duvvuru, Principal, Energy 

From Morality to Materiality

“My time at Climate Week reinforced both the urgency and importance of our work. One phrase that resonated with me was the call to move from ​“morality to materiality” to focus less on rhetoric and more on concrete actions each organization and individual can take. Many investor panels also highlighted ​“the missing middle,” the critical capital gap between venture and infrastructure financing that start-ups must bridge to scale their solutions. My takeaway is that S2G is well-positioned to help fill that gap. But as Jane Goodall reminded us at the Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit, doing so will require courage.”

– Tonya Bakritzes, Chief Marketing Officer

Beyond the 1.5°C Threshold

“Discussions around climate targets went beyond the familiar 1.5 °C goal and challenged participants to consider the increasingly erratic and extreme temperature swings that impact this average. While coral reefs and Arctic ice landscapes have long dominated headlines, record-shattering heat events are now directly impacting human health and threatening basic survivability. It is no longer enough to focus on the global average threshold; we must pay closer attention to the spikes and outliers impacting populations and ecosystems.”

– Olivia Gomez, Associate, Oceans 

A Tale of Two Realities

“Despite the headwinds that the climate space is often perceived to face, the reality is that companies are taking action. Food companies in particular are making tangible progress toward decarbonizing supply chains and future-proofing operations. Their conviction stood out. The commitment on display gave me more confidence that the private sector is ready to lead in meaningful ways.”

– Walter Robb, Operating Partner 

The Persistent Pull of Corporate Demand

“Corporate demand remains one of the strongest forces driving sustainability, with customers pushing companies to secure cleaner energy and more resilient supply chains. To future-proof that demand, adoption must be seamless so corporates can say yes with less friction. From renewable energy and water efficiency for data centers to responsible sourcing of cocoa and proteins, the focus is on practical applications. We need aligned incentives across the supply chain, like tax credits, insurance, and creative financing to protect both assets and revenue against climate risks that aren’t cliff events, but corrosive over time.”

– Audre Kapacinskas, Principal, Corporate Development 

Resilience as a Business Imperative

“Investors are increasingly interested in advancing models that generate ​‘green discounts,’ aligned with markets that are embedding resilience into value creation. This evolution signals that sustainability is being recognized not as a premium but as a source of intrinsic value. As a result, supply chain resilience has become central to long-term competitiveness.”

– Mason Leist, Associate, Food & Agriculture

From Culture to Capital

“Culture shapes the priorities that politics and capital often follow. If we want to close the global nature finance gap, we must elevate conservation and resilience as cultural imperatives. The inaugural NAT Gala was a powerful example of how bridging culture and capital can create the collective will to unlock resources. Yet, we also need fit-for-purpose financing to bridge the missing middle between early innovation and large-scale infrastructure, a challenge that S2G actively seeks to address through catalytic capital and long-term partnerships. Each of us has a role to play in ensuring that solutions can grow, scale, and secure a more resilient future.”

– Jessica Murphy, Principal, Director of Community

Bridging the Missing Middle with Fit-for-Purpose Capital

Beyond the reflections shared above, several team members appeared on-stage at events throughout the week to speak to financing climate solutions and the importance of fit-for-purpose capital. 

At the Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit, Sanjeev Krishnan joined Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen, in a conversation moderated by Christopher Helman, senior editor at Forbes. The discussion highlighted how systemic investing and fit-for-purpose capital are needed to finance climate transitions across sectors and geographies. Watch the full conversation.

“As investors, we see climate as one of the defining transitions of our time. Addressing it requires creating fit-for-purpose capital markets that can operate across asset classes and geographies. From agriculture and energy to oceans, we take a systemic approach, asking what levers within each system can drive change. Every business has an impact, positive or negative. Our goal is to help scale solutions that deliver both market returns and measurable impact. In today’s environment, that systems lens is more important than ever.”

– Sanjeev Krishnan, Managing Partner

Marisa Sweeney, principal on the Special Opportunities investment team, spoke at an event hosted by Supply Change Capital and Reinova Partners to discuss how partnerships can help solve the ​“Missing Middle” of climate finance.

“I believe the coming decade will fundamentally reshape the real asset landscape. While the impacts of AI, evolving policy, and shifting geopolitics introduce new layers of uncertainty, it’s clear to me that our energy system is on the brink of its most profound transformation in a century, and meeting surging demand will require both breakthrough innovation and unprecedented capacity. In this environment, capital providers must do more than supply capital: they must partner with operators to unlock creative financing solutions that accelerate deployment at scale. In my view, teams with deep expertise in project development and structured finance have never been more critical to building the infrastructure of the future.”

– Marisa Sweeney, Principal, Special Opportunities

We also wanted to give special recognition to the Builders Vision team for hosting its Investing in a Resilient Future event, which convened investors, corporates, and innovators to focus on tangible pathways to resilience. The event highlighted how collaboration across sectors can accelerate market development, scale sustainable solutions, and build the foundations of a more resilient economy.

“Hearing from leaders at United, ExxonMobil, and Mars at Builders Vision’s event underscored that scaling decarbonization requires a multi-faceted approach: creative collaborations across the value chain, durable policy-driven markets, and above all, internal accountability. The most direct insight came from Mars, who stressed the necessity of tying senior leaders’ financial incentives to climate goals. When up to 30% of executive long-term pay is linked directly to greenhouse gas reductions, sustainability becomes a business imperative. Embedding these incentives into corporate structures ensures that entire organizations move in unison toward lasting impact.”

– Jessica Murphy, Principal, Director of Community