As Climate Week New York City 2025 (CWNYC) approaches, I look forward to hearing the diverse range of perspectives, ideas, and issues that will be discussed. Listening lets ERM understand companies’ needs and helps identify the kinds of solutions clients and partners look to us to help develop and deliver.   

With scrutiny of corporate sustainability activity and efficacy increasing, many companies are treading quietly. But under the surface, corporate resolve is remarkably steady, with EcoVadis reporting that 87 percent of U.S. companies have maintained or increased sustainability investment through the first half of 2025. That would be notable at any time, let alone now when sustainability is under such pressure.

Pressure also has its upsides; currently it is making companies more intentional about their sustainability strategies and objectives. The environment demands this—strikingly, only six percent of sustainability experts globally participating in the Sustainability at a Crossroads research released by ERM, GlobeScan, and Volans in July of this year believe that the current sustainability agenda is fit for purpose, while fully 56 percent called for radical overhaul. CWNYC 2025 needs to deliver change, and I am confident that it can.

The urgency reflected in the Crossroads survey is prompting companies to recalibrate sustainability strategies to show the strategic importance of sustainability and how it delivers results for their businesses. The ERM team and I are very excited to be in New York and learn more about how companies are wrestling with this. While I wait for CWNYC to begin, let me share four trends and developments that I expect will shape its outcomes.

Business value creation potential is becoming the dominant metric by which we assess sustainability strategies. What took so long? And what is the right balance between this lens and sustainability investments that require time to bear fruit?

  • As ERM engages and supports clients, we see companies moving from benevolent planet-saving to business-critical approaches built on how sustainability-related business cases protect or create financial value.
  • Emphasizing the financial value of sustainability as a leading factor in investment decisions is long overdue. It is the most effective way to engage companies and integrate sustainability into their overall strategy.
  • But too narrow a financial approach to sustainability carries risks. It may overlook sources of value creation or protection that are not easy to quantify, leading to underinvestment. Ambitious sustainability goals without short-term payback also have the potential to spur innovation, new product ideas, and increased market access.

Collaboration between corporate finance and sustainability teams is transforming sustainability approaches, improving the odds that value-creation efforts succeed.   

  • Companies realize that sustainability-related value creation depends on the application of well-understood and broadly accepted finance metrics like return on investment (ROI) and net present value (NPV). This recent ERM blog explains how companies can do this.
  • Speaking the same language helps break down barriers between finance and sustainability teams as they evaluate business cases together.
  • When executed with some imagination, quantification helps companies move sustainability value creation beyond cost savings to the land of new revenue generation.
  • The effort is worth it. Between 2017 and 2021, more sustainable consumer packaged goods realized 55 percent higher market share growth and a 28 percent price premium. Another study found that sustainability-related revenues can boost a company's value by 6 to 7 No business wants to miss these kinds of growth opportunities.

Companies know that social impacts must be integral parts of climate and decarbonization plans; this mitigates operational risks and helps capture value.

  • Closing a plant running on fossil fuels or increasing green products and services offerings can be great choices for reducing climate impact, while having painful and underestimated impacts on workers, suppliers, and communities.
  • Corporate awareness of the need to consider social consequences early is rising. Two factors driving this are public pressure and regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
  • As companies work to minimize risks of neglecting social aspects of climate actions like project delays, production disruptions, and limited access to capital, they also find that proactive social approaches create commercial opportunities.
  • Companies working to address climate-related social issues may find ERM’s Embedding Just Transition into Climate Action Strategies guide offers valuable insights, honed by our work with clients.

The carbon credits market is steadying and looks positioned to grow thanks to the new UN-run trading platform, increased government interest, and better credit quality.

  • After experiencing serious and sometimes self-inflicted growing pains, the capital raised for carbon credit projects more than doubled between 2021 and 2024, and 2025 promises to be a record year. Three interconnected reasons are behind this.
    • First, the carbon credit trading framework countries agreed upon in the Paris Agreement (Article 6) are now finally operational. This provides countries with a platform to trade carbon credits and use them to help meet national emission reduction targets.
    • Second, that now-operational framework has triggered greater governmental interest from the EU to Japan, especially given that companies can now use carbon credits as part of government-led carbon reduction schemes.
    • Lastly, considerable efforts to ensure credits are of high quality have enhanced trust. This has led to increasingly large long-term offtake deals, particularly with US-based companies such as Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon.
    • ERM is at the forefront of this market, helping numerous clients scan and select high-quality credits, create carbon credit funds, and invest in project developers.
  • For more on this topic, read our recent blog.

We are looking forward to conversations on these and other topics in New York, during ERM-hosted events and at other sessions our team will attend. We will share our impressions and insights on outcomes right after NYC Climate Week, so do follow us to hear more. Working with companies aligned with ERM's purpose around shaping a sustainable future, we are optimistic that we will discover valuable new ways to improve and accelerate sustainability strategies and implementation.