COVID-19 and climate change are making it clear that disaster impacts increasingly cascade across geographies and sectors. Despite progress, risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. To change course, new approaches to governance systems and an understanding of systemic risk are needed.

Despite the current circular economy global movement, the amount of waste generated globally is still on the rise, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when online shopping and take-out food services have been increasing. We must reduce waste and, simultaneously, recycle/recover resources from “waste.” This requires transformation along the entire value chain of production and consumption from product design and distribution to end of use and life.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) invited project officers, consultants, and practitioners to attend the Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) Lecture and Clinic on 15 September and 21 September.

Asia is home to an estimated 350 million smallholder farmers, who produce around 80% of the food consumed in the region. The impacts of climate change on soil quality and productivity, exacerbated by a growing fertilizer shortage, threaten the region's food security and smallholder farmers' livelihoods.

The Circular Economy is an emerging theme internationally. A Circular Economy is a systemic approach to decouple economic development and activity from consuming finite resources. A Circular Economy will allow ADB to tackle global environmental challenges, including climate change, resource management, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, while supporting economic development and reducing poverty.

In July-August 2021, ADB's Environment Thematic Group hosted a 4-part webinar series entitled, Sustainable Financing for Nature Positive Investments: Tools for Integrating Economic and Market-Based Instruments into Projects.

The first webinar of the Virtual Dialogues on Resilient Infrastructure for 2021 focused on "business unusual for resilient urban infrastructure”. The webinar brought together experts and practitioners to discuss opportunities to accelerate innovation for resilient urban infrastructure.

Infrastructure is central to improving the lives of people and achieving inclusive and sustainable development. ADB recognizes that investing in resilient infrastructure systems is a human, environmental and economic imperative with clear economic benefits. Asia and the Pacific will need to invest $26.2 trillion in infrastructure during 2016–2030 to maintain its growth momentum, eradicate poverty, and respond to climate change.