Water scarcity is a growing challenge, but across India, communities are finding smart ways to conserve every drop. This map takes you through some of the most inspiring efforts—from ancient step wells to modern rainwater harvesting—that are making a real difference in tackling drought and ensuring a sustainable future.
Solid waste management is perhaps among the most overwhelming problems that Indian cities are grappling with today. But while the complexities around waste management in big cities are discussed widely, the challenges faced by smaller Indian cities and towns are even more complex due to limited scale, inadequate funding and institutional capacity constraints. Tier-1 and some Tier-2 cities have set up infrastructure and allocated resources for waste processing, but in general, small cities struggle to do so. As a result, waste processing in these cities is almost negligible, with only a few exceptions.
The rise of fast fashion, coupled with citizens’ limited awareness about waste disposal, has led to a textile waste challenge in Bengaluru. The city generates 220 tonnes of textile waste everyday, which accounts for 4% of its municipal waste.
Managing urban textile waste goes beyond collection, sorting, and recycling — it should also take into account the needs of the frontline workers, the waste picker community. To address this challenge, waste pickers, with support from NGOs, have developed multiple solutions. In the past few years, they have set up Bengaluru’s first textile waste processing centre, a decentralised system to provide waste to this centre, and even a separate upcycling system that fashions new clothes out of waste.
As Indian cities expand, the impact of climate hazards varies widely due to socioeconomic inequalities and political and cultural factors. Cities lie at the forefront of the climate crisis, contributing heavily to greenhouse gas emissions while also reeling from impacts like heat islands, floods, droughts and public health risks. At the same time, India’s urban population continues to swell – rising about from 32% in 2013 to 36.3% in 2023. By 2050, India’s urban population is projected to reach 53%, adding 416 million people, according to a UN report.
Fiji has adopted a strategy to improve its water sector’s resilience, sustainability and economic viability. As climate change intensifies in the Pacific, climate vulnerability of water systems under extreme weather events and rising sea levels is now endangering key water infrastructure, necessitating substantial investment in protective measures. Small Island Developing States in the Pacific are home to about 2.5 million people, living on hundreds of islands spread over the vast Pacific Ocean. The region covers nearly 15% of the Earth’s surface, with shared water security challenges and solutions.
Green bonds and sustainability-linked financing are key drivers in the global transition to a net zero, climate-resilient economy. With rising investor demand and evolving regulatory frameworks, these financial instruments can unlock much-needed infrastructure investment opportunities for cities and nations to finance transformative solutions.
Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh has a long-established leather industry with two major leather clusters, Jajmau and Unnao, that contribute significantly to the local economy. The legacy leather sector, however, is a polluting industry causing problems such as water pollution which has led to increased regulatory scrutiny and operational restrictions.
Kanpur’s tanneries are adopting innovative sustainable practices, such as Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) systems and water recycling, to reduce their environmental footprint.
As of May 2024, around 145 governments have announced – or are considering – net zero and carbon neutrality targets, covering close to 90% of global emissions. Among these are China’s 2060 carbon neutrality target, the EU’s 2050 net zero target, the US’s 2050 net zero target, and India’s 2070 net zero target.
During the early wave of net zero commitments, most were simply political declarations of intent, with details on what the net zero targets meant in practice largely missing. For instance, governments did not specify to what extent they planned to reduce emissions by the target year compared to “neutralising” them through carbon dioxide removals.
This blog outlines our recent findings on how governments have improved their current planning on carbon dioxide removal — sometimes known as ‘negative emissions’ — to meet their net zero targets, and why this matters.
The transition to a circular economy could lead to the creation of millions of green and valuable jobs worldwide. However, a new report reveals a lack of research happening in developing countries, in the Global South, where the vast majority of these employment prospects in waste management and recycling are actually going to be located.
The use, re-use and recycling of products helps combat climate change, which is especially important to the many vulnerable nations and island states in the Global South. To be truly sustainable, though, this development shift must be founded on informed policies that promote both social and environmental benefits, fairly and affordably.
Access to civic amenities like parks is skewed even when they exist as per BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) bye-laws, finds a representative study of three Bengaluru wards. In the OpenCity Bengaluru Design Jam on BBMP, the Citizen Matters team analysed and debated the bylaws and zoning rules governing civic amenities, parks and open spaces in the city.
