A year ago, the conversations at Climate Week NYC were heavy with bad news. They circled around cuts to US federal agencies, the fallout from tariffs and a growing backlash against ESG. This September, the mood was different. Across big conferences and the smaller coffee conversations where people tend to be most candid, our team heard from clients, candidates and partners who sounded ready to get on with the work.
That optimism came with a new question attached: who is going to do it?
The answer we kept hearing was broader than it used to be. Sustainability still needs its specialists. But as it moves from a standalone function into the core of how organisations operate, it also needs the people who fund it, model it, measure it, stress-test it and tell its story. Here is what that looks like in practice.
1. Sustainability now has to pass the investment committee
One partner told us financial modelling had become one of the most valuable skills on their team, and they were far from alone. Bankability, commercialisation and return on investment came up again and again. Sustainability projects are now judged by the same questions as any other business case. What does it return? Which risks does it reduce? What value does it create?
AI is feeding that process more data than ever, across supply chains and investment decisions alike. Leaders were clear that they need financial talent who can interpret the numbers and turn analysis into a decision, rather than relying solely on the volume of data now accessible to them.
2. Risk models were built for a climate we no longer have
Weather events once treated as once-in-a-century are arriving far more often, yet much of the risk modelling organisations rely on still rests on historical assumptions. Reworking those methodologies takes specialists who can get inside the models, question their inputs and rebuild them for current conditions. Demand for that expertise is growing.
3. Water shows why siloed leadership won’t work
Water was one of the week’s recurring themes, and it illustrates how tangled these challenges have become. Understanding a single site’s water impact can mean understanding local geology, supply chains, risk forecasts and rising demand from data centres all at once. No single function owns that problem. The leaders who will handle it best are the ones who can bring finance, operations, supply chain, investment and strategy into the same room and build a plan that balances competing priorities.
4. Data centres are a people challenge as much as an infrastructure one
The debate over AI and data centres was impossible to escape. Investment is pouring in, and talent is scarce on both the investment and operating sides. The conversations that stood out to us, though, were about communities. Data centres raise hard local questions about energy, water and environmental impact, and the organisations building them need people who can engage residents early, take their concerns seriously and work through interconnected problems before they harden into opposition. Community engagement and stakeholder expertise is fast becoming a critical hire.
5. The transition happens locally
Much of the work discussed in New York, from renewable installation and building retrofits to weatherisation and climate adaptation, is delivered on the ground by people with practical skills and local knowledge. A national strategy only goes as far as the workforce in the places where projects land. Leaders need to understand those local talent pools before they commit to a project, not after.
6. Sustainability needs better storytellers
If one theme cut across every conversation, it was this: sustainability has a communications problem. Consumer brands launching more sustainable products need marketing, communications and public affairs talent who can make those products land. Investment firms need people who can explain climate risk to investors in terms that change decisions. Across the sector, organisations are looking for connectors who can translate between technical specialists and the senior leaders who sign off on the budget.
What this means for hiring
The message from Climate Week was that sustainability talent is not the niche it once was. The most in-demand profiles we heard about pair a core discipline (finance, risk, engineering, communications, community engagement) with enough climate literacy to apply it. For employers, that widens the pool considerably. It also means rethinking where to look and what to look for.
If you’re building a team for the next phase of the transition, we’d be glad to talk it through. Get in touch with Dan at dan.perez@acresearch.com or the wider team at usa@acreasearch.com.
