Climate Week NYC 2026 highlights the power of climate storytelling
We're looking back on an energising Climate Week NYC 2026 where climate storytelling was highlighted as a key strategic tool.
As we reflect on an energising Climate Week NYC 2026, one central message stood out across the jam-packed schedule: storytelling is increasingly recognised as the key to advancing the climate conversation, amplifying solutions and inspiring action. Through a series of events and speaker engagements, our team joined climate leaders, storytellers and creatives to explore the role of storytelling across film, sport, entertainment, food systems and media.
Here are some of our highlights from the week:
On Sunday, in the lead-up to Climate Week, we were delighted to partner with our friends at the Climate Film Festival for their Emerging Film Funder Breakfast, co-presented by The Redford Centre and Climate Spring. The breakfast offered a practical introduction to industry on participating in film financing, including a presentation by Climate Spring’s Cheryl Slean on our approach of supporting the development of a pipeline of scripted projects aimed at the commercial market.
Kicking off our Climate Week schedule on Monday, Cheryl Slean joined an exciting panel discussion at Innovate for Impact, exploring how storytelling in sports, culture and entertainment can mobilise and empower communities, alongside fellow panelists Rishi Jain (Liverpool FC) , Sam Paine (Think Beyond), Lorine Pendleton (125 Ventures) and Pete Stuart (NASCAR).
On Tuesday, Climate Spring’s newly appointed Global Director, Emma Stewart spoke at The Climate Group’s flagship The Hub Live programme as part of '“Listen to the Science” to the “Science of Listening”? How better storytelling has made climate great again'. Together with fellow panellists Bernadette Woods-Placky (Talking Climate Collaborative), Hannah Safford (Federation of American Scientists), and moderated by Climate Group’s Adam Lake, she explored how language, narratives, and policy framing in some American states and sectors has helped accelerate US leadership in renewable spaces. The event was recorded for the 50 Shades of Green podcast. Listen to the full episode here.
On Wednesday, Emma Stewart attended Tilt Collective’s annual Food Day for the workshop, ‘The messenger is the message: How partnerships can shift narratives’, with fellow experts Jake Davis (UpRoot), Thin Lei Win (Food Systems Lighthouse Reports) and Ana Bradley (Sentient Media). The event explored the importance of movement-building and brought together experts working with stakeholders from farmers to writers' rooms and journalists, discussing how to build partnerships for impact.
To round off the week, we were thrilled to bring together members of our ecosystem for a dinner celebration, co-hosted with Wellcome Trust. It was an energising evening of connecting with our funders and creative community to deepen the conversations we had across the week and build on our shared mission of harnessing the power of storytelling to tackle the climate crisis.