29 Sep Two surprising themes from NYC Climate Week 2025
David Lyndon, COO, Reputation Leaders
On the 24th September, I was fortunate enough to be invited by Toyota to attend Climate Week in NYC to represent Reputation Leaders, as we continue to support Toyota’s sustainability thought leadership. With such a terrific opportunity, I made it my business to talk with as many people as possible and listen to many different sessions.
Here are the two surprising themes everyone was talking about:
No trust = no progress
Senator Whitehouse, the junior senator from Rhode Island, said it best in his keynote,
“Unless we can trust that what is agreed will be implemented fairly, we cannot agree to anything.”
The senator was referring to politics, but I heard the same sentiment echoed in discussions about:
• Consumers and businesses
• Corporations and regulators
• Journalists and their sources
Trust is integral to affecting change and it’s currently a scarce resource.
This leaves an opportunity for trusted companies to build a future where they can thrive through transparency, leadership, and following through on promises.
Environment and economy are connected
Everyone knows looking after the planet is a good thing, however, it usually takes second place to financial pressure. For many companies, sustainability has been a nice-to-have when business has been going well, but the first to be cut when budgets get tight.
Uninsurable properties, rising prices for travel and gas, water scarcity: these are climate change symptoms with real monetary impact for consumers. When the wallet takes a hit, consumers pay attention. As such, businesses’ financial success will rely on finding economically viable and sustainable solutions: Toyota’s circular factories, which reuse valuable resources; long-range, affordable EVs like the Chevy Bolt; and renewable sources, which help meet the insatiable need for energy.
To conclude
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in government has been falling for years. This leaves an opportunity for trustworthy companies to lead with ground-breaking solutions.
As consumers are economically affected by climate change, these advancements become an existential test for businesses: we move from morality to materiality. If consumers believe those in power have been tipping the scales away from innovation that is environmentally-friendly and also good economics, that just might be unforgivable.