The world's largest capital cities are seeing more extremely hot days than ever, according to a new study, which says the dangerous trend is being driven by scorching temperatures across Asia as the climate crisis worsens.
Asian cities, which make up about half of the world's most populous capitals, saw some of the biggest temperature increases – a trend that's evident in recent heat waves across the continent, from Southeast Asia to China and India. Asia is uniquely vulnerable to climate risks, due to its high population, poverty, and proportion of people living in low-lying areas, prone to flooding, sea level rise and other natural disasters.
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📷: Willy Kurniawan/Reuters; VCG/Getty Images; Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times/Getty Images
Digitalisation and decarbonisation are integrating at pace across sustainable construction. At Scotland’s Monklands project, digital workflows enable whole life carbon assessment and precision tracking of embodied carbon, cutting life cycle cost through predictive design and optimised offsite fabrication. The Durham initiative applying automated site assessment tools has accelerated approvals while reducing the carbon footprint of construction, aligning data efficiency with environmental sustainability in construction.
In Liverpool, biophilic eco-design for buildings demonstrates how sustainable building design is contributing to low carbon design and improved occupant wellbeing through living architecture that enhances green infrastructure. Government policy now links affordability with sustainability. Early measures from the Burnham administration suggest a commitment to decarbonising the built environment and net zero carbon buildings through incentives rooted in life cycle thinking in construction.
Regulatory pressure is mounting as agencies introduce more robust frameworks for carbon footprint reduction, reinforcing accountability across the industry. Material innovation remains central to progress. Enzyme‑based recycling and a £125 million facility for chemical reuse in Darlington indicate that circular economy in construction and circular construction strategies are moving into mainstream infrastructure.
These advances in low embodied carbon materials, renewable building materials, and green building products signal a shift towards carbon neutral construction supported by verifiable environmental product declarations (EPDs). Across digital tools, biomimetic systems, and progressive material science, sustainable building practices are redefining building lifecycle performance, embedding whole life carbon accountability into every stage. Efficiency, resilience, and ecology are converging to deliver net zero whole life carbon outcomes consistent with BREEAM v7 principles, confirming that sustainable design is now integral to construction’s economic and environmental logic.
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