Climate Week in New York is a strange kind of theatre. Imagine the United Nations General Assembly meets Glastonbury – world leaders, billionaires, scientists, activists, and investors all squeezed into midtown hotel ballrooms, coffee shops (largely absent of bathrooms), and rooftop receptions, trading big ideas while yellow cabs and many different sirens blare below. It’s dazzling, exhausting, exhilarating, and unmissable.
For me, it wasn’t just the scale of the event that struck home – it was the scale of the shift. Walking between sessions, coffees, and conversations, I realised my thinking about Natural Capital – as a sector, as an asset class, and as Oxygen Conservation’s business – had changed!
Here are my biggest takeaways from New York:
1. New York Climate Week is Natural Capital with the volume turned up to 11
It felt like stepping into the future we’ve been writing about. Natural capital wasn’t hidden away in side rooms – it was on the main stage. The conversations weren’t cautious or polite. They were urgent, ambitious, and alive with possibility. The scale of the production was remarkable – not just big panels and lofty words, but the sensory impact of lights, sound, smell, and energy. It was theatre for natural capital, staged with an intensity that made it impossible to ignore, forcing every attendee to engage fully.
2. Investors & Bankers are Everywhere
If you ever doubted whether Wall Street cared about nature, doubt no more. Investors, bankers, and asset managers were everywhere, leaning in with curiosity and challenging questions. Natural capital is no longer fringe. It’s becoming mainstream finance, with conversations about bond structures, yield curves, and risk-adjusted returns flowing as freely as the coffee (and increasingly eclectic energy drinks). There was a tangible sense of inevitability: the money is coming, and soon.
3. Carbon is Still the Engine
Carbon remains the electric motor of the natural capital vehicle. Everything else – biodiversity, water, soil health, social impacts (homes and employment) – is seen as additional benefits or future layers. That clarity matters: it tells us where the first wave of institutional money will flow, and we’re seeing it in the US market-leading deals being made by Chestnut Carbon. It’s also a reminder that, despite the rhetoric of holistic value, financial markets always need a simple, primary metric to grasp — and high-quality carbon is it!
4. Sophistication is Increasing
In New York, the conversations often featured increasingly complex financial innovations: differential structures, advanced engineering of capital flows, and the packaging of environmental assets into tradable instruments. This isn’t just about planting trees or issuing basic credits anymore – it is about constructing investment vehicles that can mobilise trillions of dollars at an institutional scale. Tools such as structured products, blended finance arrangements, and even the securitisation of natural capital assets are moving from theory into practice, creating opportunities for enormous capital inflows.
5. The Rise of the Support Systems
Ratings agencies, research organisations, insurers, brokers, and so many MRV providers all positioning to service this market. Just like the dot-com boom had its venture lawyers and cloud providers, natural capital is now spawning its ecosystem of enablers (I think I’m going to borrow that term for a future article). The scale of infrastructure being developed gives confidence that the market we’ve called for so long is now emerging industry with the foundations and structures to ensure longevity.
6. Philanthropy Isn’t an Investment Strategy
There is now complete recognition that “donating” to nature won’t cut it. If we’re serious about scale, we need capital that expects (and delivers) returns. Profit and purpose are not opposites – they are essential partners. In fact, philanthropy that pretends to be investment may actively delay progress; true investment aligned with conservation outcomes is what unlocks transformation. This is something we’ve talked about a lot previously, but in the US during climate week, it was openly and aggressively stated everywhere we went.
7. Pushback Against Environmentalism Is Growing
The narrative is shifting from “do-gooding” to “deal-making.” Some were openly hostile to old-school environmentalism, seeing it as somewhere between idealism and naivety. Natural capital is increasingly framed as an investment opportunity first, with impact as a by-product. That may feel uncomfortable, but it’s real, and understanding that framing is essential if we want to influence the flow of capital rather than just critique it.
It’s decision time for all of us – do you want to help shape the future or criticise it from the sidelines – we’ve made our choice.
8. Communication Has Changed
It’s not about persuading the eco-converted anymore. It’s about speaking to investors, policymakers, and the public in new languages – translating ecology into economics, and ambition into assets. Storytelling remains so important, but it now has to be coupled with hard data, metrics, and market logic. Crucially, we also need to abandon the endless acronyms and intellectual posturing, especially when working across geographies, countries, jurisdictions, and languages. Clarity and accessibility are not optional extras; they’re the tickets to entry for the most important conversations.
9. Permanency and Auditability, Not Localism or Morality
In the US, debates weren’t about local fairness or moral outrage at the idea of profiting from improving the environment and climate. They were about permanence and proof. How do you guarantee carbon stays stored? How do you audit biodiversity? These are the make-or-break questions for credibility, and it’s clear that only the players with rigorous systems ARE trusted at scale.
10. The Scale of the Challenge Is Beyond Demand
Climate change and biodiversity collapse are not subject to political opinion. They are scientific fact. Pretending otherwise – even if you’re the President – is absurd. This is the sentiment that was shared by Prime Minister Tony Blair, appearing live on stage in the hours after President Trump addressed the UN. Demand is not the issue; supply of credible, high-quality solutions is, and we need every type of solution to meet this demand.
11. Everyone Has their Data Model
Almost every investor has their own proprietary model for opportunity analysis. But most are narrow – single-lens, single-issue. At Oxygen Conservation, we’ve built a multi-layered approach: land, carbon, nature, renewables, built property, ecotourism and regenerative agriculture. That’s our vertically integrated, innovation stack, and we believe it’s the best way to build something genuinely resilient over the long term.
12. People Are Worried About Trump
There was a sadness in some conversations, especially with those who live and work in DC – almost an apology for what President Trump represents to the world. Worry about rollback of environmental progress is real. But so too is the determination to build regardless of politics. The sense of urgency was palpable: people know that political cycles are short and that environmental processes will extend long beyond all our lifetimes. We just need to weather this and many other storms to come.
13. Authenticity Matters
Everywhere you looked – with the exception of UK-led events – there were plastic cups and piles of branded merchandise, a sharp contrast to the heightened awareness of microconsumerism challenges that dominate the UK discourse. It was striking that so few people seemed concerned. The event was still about capital, markets, and systems – serious conversations with serious players – but the backdrop of disposability left a jarring note. It served as a reminder that substance must ultimately trump surface, and that we cannot ignore the small, everyday contradictions in our pursuit of large-scale change. Ultimately, people can sense authenticity — and in some rooms, it was missing.
Final Reflection
Natural capital is no longer a whisper on the sidelines. It is now centre stage, backed by investors, structured by professionals, and driven by ever-increasing necessity. For Oxygen Conservation, this means it’s time to accelerate. The signals from New York made it clear: the market is forming around us, faster than many imagined (but slower than we hoped), and the opportunities and risks are compounding.
From New York, I came home not just convinced we’re in the right space, but certain we need to play faster, bolder, and at a scale that truly matches the challenge. That means more ambitious acquisitions, widening our geographical focus, and increasingly holding conversations with those who have the capital and commitment to change the world for the better – and helping articulate the profitable opportunity to do so. It also means recognising that if you want to deliver the highest-quality, premium offering (especially) in this asset class, you must work with people, partners, and places who share that commitment and authenticity. Because how you do anything is how you do everything.
The question we asked ourselves before agreeing to attend New York Climate Week was whether it was worth the time, cost, energy, and emissions in doing so. Perhaps the easiest way to answer that question is to simply say: I’ll see you there next year.