A serial connector, angel investor, and corporate responsibility expert, Susan has 30+ years of experience in marketing, public relations, and sustainability communications. Susan is the recipient of Forbes magazine’s 50 over 50—Impact 2021 award and Worth Media’s Worthy100 award. Currently, Susan invests in and advises women-led start-ups, including Apolitical., The Meteor, and Our Place. She previously served on the boards of USA for UNHCR, Bpeace, The Lower Eastside Girls Club and presently serves on the board of The 19th News and The United Chamber of Connection. She is also on the advisory boards of Better Politics Foundation, LEBEC, The Conduit and Just Capital.
From September 21 to 28, over 100,000 people gathered across more than 1,000 events in New York City for Climate Week — now in its 16th year and held in concert with the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Across sectors and from all parts of the world, impact-makers and leaders gathered to collaborate, connect, and co-create. In each room I entered, everything felt realistic and positive — even while the U.S. President, five blocks away, called climate change the world’s biggest hoax.
Unfortunately, this rhetoric came as no shock. For months, he and his administration have kneecapped institutions designed to address climate challenges, baked climate denial into legislation, and endangered the health of our planet and our people. And they’ve tried to convince us there’s nothing we can do about it.
But those of us attending Climate Week know better. We choose not to surrender to despair. We know we’re not alone in this resistance. Let us not forget that this was the largest Climate Week to date. En masse, people showed up to connect in community, collaborate, conspire, and foster the power we have as storytellers to inspire change.
Helen Clarkson, CEO of the Climate Group, said of this year’s event, “We finished conversations about ‘should’ we act years ago. Now we’re outlining ‘how.’”
That was the ethos of this year’s event: building roadmaps. We can do that together — when we view the week not just as a chance to expand our professional networks, but as an opportunity to organize together and build forces to be reckoned with.
In a world where language jeopardizes funding, visibility, and political safety for the individuals and groups doing climate work, we as social impact communicators are on a tightrope. But we aren’t walking it alone.
Together, we locate ways to break through, with storytelling as our compass. Narratives move data into people’s hearts and minds. It’s true that we’re up against vengeful and oppressive actors, and our techniques need to be savvy and nuanced. But we develop those strategies when we put our heads together. We find ways to strengthen our impact, preserve the health and longevity of the coalitions we build, and get people to care.
As Denielle Sachs, Chief Impact Officer at The Conduit, wrote in Forbes: “When we begin to treat relationships as core infrastructure rather than collateral benefits, our entire operating logic shifts… we build ecosystems that are not only more inclusive and resilient, but better equipped to adapt in times of change.”
Progress happens when you get creative, build relationships, and meet people where they are. As long as we keep doing that, climate action keeps moving.
Under threats of retaliation and funding cuts, advocacy changes shape. But it doesn’t stop. A Harvard Business Review study found that, despite pressure to scale back climate initiatives, companies are resisting — with 40 percent of companies quietly staying the course on their sustainability efforts, 13 percent publicly reaffirming their commitment, and 32 percent expanding their initiatives. Though some of it is happening quietly, resistance is still happening.
At Climate Week, I saw that adjustment in action. Large gatherings and intimate conversations alike made space for peers to co-create and for leaders to take ideas and feedback. An Executive Series of closed-door, invite-only events fostered dialogue between senior leaders, with the vision that decisions made in these small sessions can ignite widespread change.
Launching a campaign aptly titled “F*ck Doom,” Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of Futerra, told us: “Doom wants you small. But we’re not extras in the apocalypse. Whatever you’ve got, use it.”
If we believe that the current government’s agenda will make climate solutions impossible, we’re letting them win. If we believe that climate change is too high-level an issue, that the damage is too far gone, we lose the ability to mitigate harm and make tangible differences — differences that can change and even save lives.
In spite of climate denial from the government, most Americans believe that climate change is happening. And, as the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, pointed out this week, many solutions to address it already exist. We’re setting goals and laying pathways to achieve them, but we lose momentum and potential in a gap between knowledge and action. As storytellers, this is where our work lies: building bridges that take us from ambition to implementation.
Change will take creativity and perseverance. Those are skills we have and ones we must exercise. As Katharine K. Wilkinson so brilliantly put it: “It is no small thing to hold the pen of persuasion… Hold that with humility and reverence and take care of one another. This is long haul work. We need courage and depth.”
Entering New York Climate Week 2025, we were all bracing for doom and despair. Thankfully, so many of us experienced a vibrant and determined community with the energy and the needed enthusiasm to keep up the momentum and push for positive change.
Given the recent passing of the extraordinary Jane Goodall, I’ll leave you with her words. "Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other." If you’re a climate advocate or impact changemaker looking to connect, reach out to us at mcpstrategies.com.
