Top 7 Takeaways from New York City Climate Week

During Climate Week NYC 2025, BDO hosted two days of panels that provided a deep dive into some of the most relevant sustainability topics, including energy demand and infrastructure, building climate resilience, and translating compliance into business opportunity. Read on for some of the top insights from our discussions.

1. We’re only in the first mile of the marathon when it comes to growing energy demand, but there’s a sprint to get renewable projects online.

The booming data center sector and rapid development of AI are helping to drive surging energy demand. These increased levels of consumption are raising concerns about higher electricity costs and the nation’s ability to source sufficient new energy generation capacity — especially as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) sunsets certain renewable energy project incentives.Currently, renewable energy developers and investors are racing to lock in a safe harbor strategy in an effort to ensure their projects remain financeable. However, the permitting and interconnection process to access the aging U.S. power grid remains a significant challenge. As a result, sustainable assets that are already interconnected have significant value, and behind-the-meter solutions continue to grow.

2. Despite tax incentive rollbacks, OBBB includes some winners and creates pockets of opportunity for investors with a high-risk tolerance.

OBBB isn’t negatively impacting renewable energy projects across the board — the legislation includes some relative winners. For example, OBBB preserves tax credit eligibility for battery storage projects for the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) under Section 48E and the Production Tax Credit (PTC) under Section 45Y through 2033, although stricter criteria — like expanded limits on foreign-supplied components — make the credits harder to qualify for than they were under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Fuel cell and geothermal projects also remain accessible under OBBB. 

However, going forward debt is expected to become a bigger component of the overall tax capital stack for renewable projects, making financing more challenging for many. This environment is creating a plethora of new asset acquisition opportunities for developers and investors who are well-positioned to weather the storm. Increased consolidation is already beginning, and this trend is expected to continue. 

3. An “all of the above” approach will be necessary to meet future energy demand, but many solutions are not yet fully accessible or developed.

Future energy needs will call for a varied mix of resources, but the deployment of many energy solutions is complicated by a lengthy infrastructure build-out phase and other challenges. For example, nuclear power is a scalable, on-demand energy source with minimal environmental impacts, but is incredibly difficult to implement in the U.S. due to complicated approval processes and local resistance to projects. The current administration strongly supports nuclear power and is making efforts to deploy a new generation of nuclear fission reactors called small modular reactors (SMRs), which are designed to be safer and more flexible than traditional nuclear plants. However, with a build cycle that is five to six years, SMRs are not yet readily available.

In addition, a manufacturing and delivery backlog is hindering the expanded use of natural gas turbines. And although hydrogen also has potential for helping meet growing energy demand, a scale up of electrolyzer capacity and storage challenges would need to be addressed. Solar and wind remain the lowest-cost energy sources, but they still face lengthy permitting and grid connection wait times, as well as policy uncertainty.

4. Do the resilience work — businesses that invest comparatively minimal amounts preparing for climate-related events can realize significant savings over time.

One in 100-year climate events are now occurring much more frequently, significantly increasing organizations’ vulnerability. To plan effectively, organizations must embed climate modeling into their risk mitigation and business continuity conversations. This begins with using the most updated models and data to develop a realistic view of their current climate risk and how that risk could change in the future, then identifying ways to build resilience.

Investing 10% to 15% in resilience efforts up front has the potential to save millions on the back end. For example, investing in specific types of equipment and equipment setup, such as flood walls for coastal locations that are exposed to storm surge, can help minimize damage and disruptions caused by natural disasters and can also lead to significant insurance premium savings over the lifecycle of an asset. Investing in Contingent Business Interruption (CBI) coverage can also help businesses prepare for income loss when a third party is impacted by climate events, causing supply chain disruptions or interruptions to power and water services. 

5. The carbon credit market has significant potential for growth.

Many are anticipating an imminent surge in demand in the voluntary carbon credit market. In a recent study commissioned by the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), companies rated making progress toward climate goals as the top opportunity for participating in the carbon credit market. Demonstrating action across broader nature and social goals was rated as the second largest opportunity. However, the study acknowledges that many barriers to entering the market still exist, including the lack of clarity and alignment with credit use in voluntary standards.

Through its proposed Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) may modify its restrictive stance on the use of carbon credits. Currently organizations may consider removal credits as an option to reduce their residual emissions only after they have achieved their net zero target. The proposed revised standard would allow companies to use removal credits at earlier stages of their net-zero journey to address these hard-to-abate residual emissions, provided they meet their short-term emissions reduction targets. This phased approach offers some flexibility while maintaining accountability through clear progress checkpoints and has some potential to create ongoing demand for high-quality carbon removals. SBTi also plans to introduce formal recognition for companies that go above and beyond by using this method.

6. Integrating sustainability considerations can help organizations build more robust operational efficiency plans.

Embedding sustainability factors into operations management enhances the ability of organizations to run efficiently and effectively, helping to further strategic business goals. Tracking sustainability metrics like water and energy use or waste generated provides organizations options to reduce consumption and costs. Sustainability data can help reveal hotspots for organizations to achieve quick wins, or it can be used to evaluate the business case for broader operational changes.

While AI’s energy demands contribute to negative environmental impacts, its potential for advancing efforts to gather and analyze sustainability-related information is notable. For example, as businesses increasingly focus on optimizing operations, AI is being integrated into facilities management and explored as a tool to help automate retro-commissioning — a process that evaluates a building’s systems to help ensure they are functioning efficiently.

7. The fastest and most effective way to embed sustainability throughout an organization is by anchoring conversations to financial metrics.

Members of the C-suite will be focused on cost savings, bolstering resilience, and gaining a competitive edge — all challenges that sustainability can help address, even though projects and initiatives may not always be framed in that manner. For example, comparatively minimal investments in energy efficiencies have the potential to add up to millions in savings in future utility costs. Although these projects result in decarbonization, that benefit will likely be a secondary driver. And sustainability-related resilience work provides companies with another lens to look at regular business risk more effectively, rather than treating sustainability as a separate initiative. 

Offering products that are bio-based instead of carbon based may also help companies gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. So far, companies have focused initiatives on reducing emissions, but that’s just the beginning of business opportunity: There’s potential to rethink a broad range of processes to help mitigate and reverse human impact, and at the same time, monetize that work.