By FWSF Member, Stephanie Glazer, Sustainability & ESG Leader | Author of SASB Standards | Climate & Carbon | SBTi Expert Working Group, LinkedIn
This year, I joined three major convenings centered on climate and finance: San Francisco Climate Week, a London-based standard-setting expert working group, and New York Climate Week. Across these gatherings, powerful signals of change emerged: resilience as an investable attribute, sustainability as a financial strategy, and collaboration as the lever for scaling solutions.
Together, these trends are reshaping financial markets in terms of risk, opportunity, and execution. From fixed income and insurance innovation to AI-driven energy systems and circular economy leadership, the convergence of climate and finance is creating new frontiers for capital allocation, risk assessment, and value creation. For FWSF members, understanding these shifts can offer a strategic advantage and pathways to leadership.
As physical climate risk reshapes markets, resilience is becoming a key part of the value proposition. At “Scaling Up Financing for Adaptation Investments in the U.S. due to Climate Change & Related Risks,” hosted by the Fixed Income Analysts Society, Inc., experts from Moody’s, S&P Global, Swiss Re, and others explored how climate resilience is becoming an investable attribute. Panelists discussed how climate risk is increasingly embedded in credit ratings, insurance modeling, and municipal borrowing costs, fundamentally reshaping capital flows.
As FEMA’s cost-sharing structures evolve, municipalities, investors, and insurers are mobilizing capital through resilience bonds, catastrophe bonds, and blended finance models, leveraging mechanisms that translate environmental risk into investment-grade opportunity. Investors, corporations, local businesses, and communities now face pivotal choices about whether and where to rebuild, retreat, or reimagine. These decisions increasingly hinge on new forms of financial resilience—the emerging and evolving tools that determine how risk is priced and capital is accessed. In this sense, resilience is no longer simply a physical or social goal but a financial determinant of how and where growth occurs. For more detail, the FIASI session recording is available online.
For leading organizations, sustainability is becoming increasingly integrated into core business and investment strategy and recognized as a source of competitive advantage. This shift is amplified by artificial intelligence (AI), which can deliver improved data insights and optimize efficiencies.
At “From Unknown to Investable: Unlocking Supply Chain Resilience with AI-Enabled Data,” panelists from Treefera and Campbell Global (a J.P. Morgan company) shared how AI analytics are advancing J.P. Morgan’s alternative investments in timberland. Using drone and satellite imagery, they are improving the speed and accuracy of natural capital valuation and assessing forest stock with greater precision. Such innovations are strengthening investor confidence and supporting regulatory compliance.
At “Banking on the Future: AI, Fintech, and the Workforce,” Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, CEO of Humane Intelligence and U.S. Science Envoy for AI, described how ethical AI systems are being built to ensure transparency and accountability. While Nathan Sheets, Global Chief Economist at Citigroup, discussed the broader economic implications of these emerging technologies; similar topics were covered in his recent Citi Podcast.
Meanwhile, at the CSIS event “AI: Powering a More Productive Energy Future,” experts from NVIDIA, Emerald AI, and Crusoe Energy highlighted how AI-powered systems are optimizing the clean energy transition, cutting costs, improving grid efficiency, and enabling predictive management of emissions and energy demand. For more detail, the CSIS session recording is available online.
Leveraging AI to advance sustainable outcomes and climate solutions will be a key driver of value. Yet, as David Gallacher of UC Berkeley notes, “The question isn’t whether AI creates value—our research clearly shows it does, particularly at the personal and team levels. The question is whether organizations will develop the measurement sophistication needed to recognize and optimize that value creation.” Professionals that seek to create clarity and understanding around these opportunities will lead the way.
As the climate and finance landscape evolves, one message is clear: no single sector or institution can drive this transition alone. Public–private partnerships, blended finance, and philanthropic capital are de-risking innovation and accelerating deployment, while deep supply chain collaboration is driving meaningful progress.
The “Bridging the Gap: Catalyzing Private Investment in Adaptation” session on adaptation finance highlighted how catalytic capital can unlock private investment in climate resilience by leveraging philanthropic or public-benefit investments, particularly in developing and emerging economies. Panelists explored strategies to overcome market barriers, integrate climate risk into investment frameworks, and deploy risk-tolerant capital to build investable pipelines of scalable solutions. They shared lessons from real-world adaptation finance models represented by the Gates Foundation, Climate Policy Initiative, ClimateWorks Foundation, Tailwind, and Autodesk Foundation.
Also compelling are collaborative value-chain models driving the systems-level coordination needed to build climate-resilient systems. The “Can Animal Agriculture Be a Sustainable Solution?” session on regenerative animal agriculture brought together ranchers, nutrition experts, industry associations, NGOs, and McDonald’s, which recently announced a $200 million commitment to promote regenerative grazing practices. This partnership aligns incentives and data across the supply chain: ranchers adopt new practices with technical support; suppliers coordinate procurement and financing; partners provide conservation, verification, and technical assistance.
Together, these efforts underscore a central insight: partnerships amplify our collective reach, accelerating scalable solutions that advance climate goals and create lasting market value.
For FWSF members, this convergence brings both opportunity and responsibility. Those who pair financial rigor with systems thinking and cross-sector insight are well positioned to lead this transition. By developing fluency in sustainability data, resilience finance, and climate-driven innovation, FWSF professionals can help drive markets that deliver both growth and lasting impact.
Collaboration is essential for real progress. By partnering with governments, NGOs, and industry peers, financial leaders are funding climate infrastructure, structuring agreements that balance purpose and profit, and piloting solutions to de-risk innovation and drive greater rewards. In these and other Climate Week sessions, we also saw strong engagement from the Financial Women’s Association of New York, Rock The Street, Wall Street, and 100 Women in Finance, reflecting the growing convergence of climate and finance and creating new spaces for collaboration, peer engagement, and leadership across the capital markets.
Join the conversation at FWSF and be part of the community redefining what leadership looks like in sustainable finance.
NOTES
1Supply Chain Digital. 2025. “Treefera: Unlocking the Supply Chain’s First Mile.” Supply Chain Digital Magazine, September 2025, 68–81. https://supplychaindigital.com/magazine/supply-chain-digital-september-2025
2Gallacher, David. 2025. “Beyond ROI: Are We Using the Wrong Metric in Measuring AI Success?” UC Berkeley Professional Education. Accessed October 6, 2025. https://exec-ed.berkeley.edu/2025/09/beyond-roi-are-we-using-the-wrong-metric-in-measuring-ai-success/
3McDonald’s USA. 2025. “McDonald’s Expands Investment in U.S. Regenerative Ranching across 38 States.” ESG News, published September 2025. https://esgnews.com/mcdonalds-usa-commits-200-m-to-regenerative-ranching-across-38-states/
REFERENCES
Citi Research. 2025. E48: Productivity & the AI Revolution. Transcript, September 18, 2025. https://www.citigroup.com/global/insights/e48-productivity-the-ai-revolution.
Gallacher, David. 2025. “Beyond ROI: Are We Using the Wrong Metric in Measuring AI Success?” UC Berkeley Professional Education. Accessed October 6, 2025. https://exec-ed.berkeley.edu/2025/09/beyond-roi-are-we-using-the-wrong-metric-in-measuring-ai-success/.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 2025. “AI: Powering a More Productive Energy Future – Full Program.” YouTube video of session at New York Climate Week, published September 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUyhUYfTMwQ.
Fixed Income Analysts Society, Inc. (FIASI). 2025. “2025 Sustainable Finance | Climate Week Event Video.” Video of session at New York Climate Week, published September 2025. https://fiasi.org/sustainable-finance-climate-week-event-video/.
McDonald’s. 2025. “McDonald’s Expands Investment in U.S. Regenerative Ranching across 38 States.” ESG News, published September 2025. https://esgnews.com/mcdonalds-usa-commits-200-m-to-regenerative-ranching-across-38-states/.
Supply Chain Digital. 2025. “Treefera: Unlocking the Supply Chain’s First Mile.” Supply Chain Digital Magazine, September 2025, 68–81. https://supplychaindigital.com/magazine/supply-chain-digital-september-2025.
From Connections Newsletter (Food for Thought): October 2025
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