Hot Air and Hard Truths: Reflections on London Climate Action Week 2026

London Climate Action Week 2026 ran from 20 to 28 June. It was, in every sense of the word, heated.

The UK Met Office issued a red extreme heat warning mid-week — the kind that makes you question whether your laptop will melt before your net zero targets do. Temperatures across the capital pushed into record territory, and London’s building stock, so regularly discussed at ESG conferences, got an unscheduled live stress test.

The crowning irony? A panel at the London School of Economics on “Extreme Heat: Improving Governance and Strengthening Action” was cancelled due to the extreme heat.  Climate change, it turns out, has no respect for our Eventbrite listings — but it does have a rather compelling sense of timing.

The Air-Con Exception

For those of us attending events in the City and West End, conditions were considerably more comfortable. The sessions I attended — including the Pineapple Day event — were held in well-specified, climate-controlled offices representing the better end of London’s commercial stock. Chilled air, good coffee, excellent views, and some genuinely energising conversations.

It was also, in its own way, instructive. The buildings that work well in a heatwave are the ones that have been invested in. The ones that don’t are the ones that haven’t. The physical climate risk conversation is ultimately that simple — and that consequential.

The Big Theme: A Human Problem, Not a Technology One

Across the real estate and infrastructure sessions I attended during the week, one theme came through with real clarity: the solutions are largely available. What we need now is the human infrastructure to deploy them.

The technology exists. Renewable energy, retrofit pathways, smart building systems, climate risk modelling — none of this is waiting on a breakthrough. What’s needed is the organisational will, the clear mandates, and the governance frameworks to act on what we already know.

That’s actually an encouraging framing. It means the barrier is surmountable. It means the decisions that fund managers, asset managers, and operators take in the next few years genuinely matter — because the tools to act are already in hand.

The Landlord-Tenant Challenge: Still Worth Solving

The split incentive problem between landlords and tenants is a fixture of every real estate sustainability event.  We called it out as a major issue in our recent white paper on decarbonisation and LCAW was no exception. Landlord invests in the upgrade; tenant captures the energy saving. Familiar territory.

But rather than treating this as an intractable structural flaw, the more productive conversations this week framed it as a coordination challenge with known solutions — green lease clauses, shared savings mechanisms, collaborative retrofit frameworks — that are gaining real traction in better-managed portfolios. The direction of travel is positive. The pace just needs to accelerate.

For institutional investors across large, diverse portfolios, getting this relationship right isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s central to delivering credible climate transition plans.

What Would Move the Needle Further

The constructive thread running through the week was clear: better data, and more of it shared.

The specific ask that kept surfacing was for clearer, more accurate cost data — not high-level sector estimates, but asset-level, interventions-based costings that investment committees can interrogate, model against exit timelines, and set alongside the increasingly quantifiable cost of inaction.

The other consistent message was the value of collaboration — between landlords and tenants, across industry bodies, and between the private sector and policymakers – including Government. The organisations making the most progress aren’t waiting for perfect conditions. They’re building coalitions, sharing data, and moving.

So, Was It Worth It?

Absolutely. LCAW remains a vital gathering of serious climate minds in Europe, and the quality of conversation this year reflected both the urgency of the moment and the genuine depth of expertise in the room.

The heat this week wasn’t just meteorological. There’s real momentum building —in LP expectations, and in the competitive dynamic between assets that are transition-ready and those that aren’t. The industry is listening but now needs to act.

The week left me more optimistic, not less. The path forward is clearer than it’s ever been. The question now is pace — and pace is something we can all influence.

If you’d like to talk through what any of this means for your portfolio, we’d be glad to continue the conversation.

EVORA works with institutional real estate and infrastructure investors on physical climate risk, net zero transition, SFDR, and sustainability benchmarking. Get in touch to find out how we can help.