London Climate Action Week: Vibes and reflections
The 2025 London Climate Action Week is in the books and it was the biggest and most substantive one yet. The techUK climate team was out and about in force attending lots of events, hosting our own events, digesting some of the policy announcements and generally learning. It was a real success so massive congrats to E3G, London and Partners, Climate Action and all the organisers!
With The Donald putting some people off New York Climate Week (let alone the astronomical costs associated with attending) there was a real NYC style buzz to it, and this is reflected in the fact there were 700+ events and counting (the 700 were only those listed on the official website!), and 50k attendees from all over the world. We hosted a couple of things and our members were out and about which was great to see.
So what was discussed and what themes emerged from all the discussions, reports and events this week? Some key things kept coming up (disclaimer: doesn’t mean they are correct!) and hopefully this gives you a flavour of what was said by the business community.
- Climate action is happening, happening at pace, but is being rebranded. Businesses are still taking major strides towards net zero, but in the age of ‘securonomics’ (as Rachel Reeves calls it), it’s being badged as ‘resilience’. Firms are also annoyed at shifting goalposts and the need for policy certainty and regulations that don’t change every 5 minutes.
- Big policy stuff. We’re delighted to see long awaited consultations on transition plans, the Sustainability Reporting Standards and responsible business, and combined with ongoing work on carbon markets and CBAM, there’s a tonne of climate policy happening in the UK. In addition and building on something others have been saying for a while now, the UK government (particularly DESNZ) is seen to be overly focused on the energy side at the expense of decarbonising industry.
- How’s your Portuguese (Brazil dialects)? Brazil came to play! Like any big global UN event COP has become very localised and the Brazilian government, Embassy, and communities were ever present in showing leadership, announcing partnerships and bringing in local voices as they gear up to host COP 30 which is being labelled the Amazon and nature COP.
- Lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons. Not the play, but an indication nature was everywhere! Businesses, standards bodies and governments are increasingly converging the climate and biodiversity crises and looking at solutions to address this. Indeed circularity and equity also came up loads showing a clear focus on interdependencies.
- One does not simply solve scope 3. Oh wait - maybe we have? If you went to any climate event in the last few years the biggest challenge has been on how firms can count and reduce their scope 3 emissions. However this time round so many senior execs from big companies seemed fairly confident they had cracked it which suggests the methodologies and support services have matured and become more widely adopted/understood.
- Greenwashing rules are creating greenhushing. The CMA and ASA came in for multiple kickings for inadvertently scaring firms into ‘greenhushing’ (where you choose not to make green claims) by overly applying the rules. Risk averse lawyers and marketers are therefore deciding to be better safe than sorry!
- Finance discussions have not changed. It feels we’re having the same discussions as 5 years ago on scaling climate finance and funnelling cash into climate action. Nature is getting more focus yes, and insurance is definitely moving the dial on de-risking (special credit here to Anthony at Howdens), but it’s still the same!
- Adaptation and resilience. Massive themes (perhaps because the insurance industry was super prevalent at LCAW) were how can we protect assets, communities and people from climate change and more money is being funnelled into this.
- AI and data centres need to be more vocal. When people learn we’re from techUK, almost unequivocally the question is ‘what about data centre energy’ (got asked it all.the.time.!). Despite addressing some of the UK industry facts (British DCs need to wait years for energy and aren't water intnsive), there is a clear neagtive perception.
- Digital solutions are not as well perceived as perhaps they used to be a couple of years ago. People love the applications of AI and ‘nature tech’, but deliverable use cases aren’t as clear for many, and tech licencing costs and rising prices are making customers wary. This is something the industry needs to address.
- Standards! We’re seeing different aspects of the climate industry mature and as a result more efforts to standardise. The work of the Carbon Accounting Alliance in particular is very welcome and a new SME reporting standard by B4NZ will only help businesses in every industry.
- Unashamedly London centric. Not a total shock given the name of the week and fact the Greater London Authority are crucial in making this happen, but there were a tonne of events on specific things London (at city and borough level) has done to decarbonise and improve air quality.
So all in a fun week of climate action, warm prosecco and vegetarian canapes, and we hope you found this vibe-check, summary useful. Another (slightly cheesy) take is that all industries need to work together more so if you want to get involved with our Climate, Environment and Sustainability programme our 2025 work programme is here or just get in touch using the details below.
Craig Melson
Craig is Associate Director for Climate, Environment and Sustainability and leads on our work in these areas ranging from climate change, ESG disclosures and due diligence, through to circular economy, business and human rights, conflict minerals and post-Brexit regulation.
Josh Turpin
Josh joined techUK as a Programme Manager for Telecoms and Net Zero in August 2024.
Alec Bartishevich
Alec joined techUK in 2025 as the Programme Manager for Sustainability within the Climate, Environment, and Sustainability Programme.
Laura Packham
Laura has joined techUK from March 2025 on secondment from the Civil Service Fast Stream.
Lucas Banach
Lucas Banach is Programme Assistant at techUK, he works on a range of programmes including Data Centres; Climate, Environment & Sustainability; Market Access and Smart Infrastructure and Systems.
Matthew Wild
Matthew joined techUK in August 2023 as a Programme Assistant.