India's shift to a low-carbon economy relies on translating credible policies into tangible ground-level outcomes, a process that depends heavily on strong financial support. This session explores the critical link between ambition and implementation, examining how policy frameworks and green finance can together accelerate the delivery of sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure. It will reflect on the progress made, the barriers that continue to impede scale and the opportunities emerging at the intersection of policy ambition, investment readiness and sustainable development. The session aims to identify what it will take to turn enabling frameworks into measurable transformation across buildings and infrastructure.
As India progresses towards its vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047, robust policies and evidence-based data systems will be critical to drive the decarbonisation of built infrastructure. This fireside chat will explore how emissions data, reporting frameworks, and policies can enable more informed decision-making and accelerate climate action across buildings, infrastructure, cities, and regions.
India is facing a critical water crisis, and its impact is being felt across every layer of the society. While climate change has severely reduced the availability of natural water sources, our own over-exploitation of these resources has pushed the situation to a breaking point.
As we look toward the future, managing this resource becomes more complex. Modern digital infrastructure including the data centres, that power our connected world and support AI innovation, requires a significant amount of water. This highlights a critical challenge as our reliance on technology grows, so does its footprint, forcing us to rethink how we allocate water fairly between vital human needs and technological advancement.
To navigate this crisis, cities must chart a new pathway forward. The session aims at understanding how we must design our cities to strictly protect and conserve water for humans and biodiversity, while simultaneously building sustainable frameworks that allow technological development to thrive. The future depends on finding a balance where progress and life support one another.
As the world builds at an unprecedented pace, the design choices of the building envelope will lock in decades of embodied carbon. This session examines how an efficient envelope design can reduce both operational and embodied emissions, actively capture and lock away carbon while optimising energy consumption and enhancing occupant comfort.
The discussion will explore the correlation between passive design strategies, next generation low carbon materials and climate-resilient architecture suited to India's diverse climatic zones. The session aims to identify the design principles, innovations in material industry and market shifts needed to make low-impact buildings the default rather than the exception across the built environment.
Global energy demand grew by 1.7% in 2025, driven heavily by rapid electrification across Asia and surging power needs from data centres and electric vehicles, beyond the conventional building energy demands. This reinforces the need for a faster transition to clean energy.
India exemplifies both the opportunity and the complexity of this shift. While the country has already surpassed its target of achieving 50% of installed electric power capacity from non-fossil sources ahead of 2030, integrating this capacity into the grid remains a critical challenge. Transmission bottlenecks and battery storage capacity continue to constrain renewable energy deployment. The power system also faces growing risks from climate shocks, such as El Niño events where the predicted yield from RE sources may not be as anticipated, thereby increasing reliance on coal.
This session deliberates upon whether clean energy transition can deliver a stable and equitable energy balance without compromising reliability and affordability for a developing nation.
India's rapid urban growth must not leave any citizen behind. From persons with disabilities and the elderly, to women and economically marginalised communities, inclusive and universally accessible design must be embedded into housing, public spaces and infrastructure. This session will examine informal housing, accessibility, and policy gaps in our cities, exploring how to advance spatial equity through the lens of India's affordable housing and masterplan development projects.
The session seeks to question how inclusive design can bridge the urban divide and shape equitable cities for all. It will explore how the built environment can foster a sense of belonging, ensuring cities become spaces where every community feels seen, valued and integrated.
India faces mounting waste management challenges driven by rapid urbanisation and rising consumption. While conventional waste continues to strain the existing systems, the technological advancements are also giving rise to emerging waste streams that demand new approaches to recovery and recycling. It is imperative to accelerate our journey from a linear “take-make-dispose” model towards a “cradle-to-cradle” circular economy.
The session will explore how India is achieving and can further accelerate, a circular economy model through policy interventions, innovations and behavioural change. It will showcase evolving stories of scaling strategies into a lasting blueprint for sustainable waste management.
As climate risks intensify, cities need infrastructure that is not only resilient but elastic - capable of adapting to evolving environmental and social pressures. This session will explore planning approaches that move beyond reactive responses to flexible, future-ready infrastructure. It will examine resilient coastal and inland development, planning for climate-induced migration, and nature-based solutions such as sponge cities, restored mangroves, and coastal wetlands that strengthen resilience against heat stress, earthquakes, floods, cyclones, storm surges, water scarcity, and other climate-related hazards, while protecting vulnerable communities and critical infrastructure.
The challenges of the future demand ideas that are ambitious, innovative and actionable. This year again, a session that brings together thought leaders, innovators and changemakers to present bold solutions addressing some of the most pressing sustainability challenges of our time. Moving beyond conventional thinking, spanning diverse sectors and disciplines, the discussion will showcase breakthrough concepts, emerging technologies and transformative approaches with the potential to accelerate climate action and sustainable development. The session aims to explore that which of today's boldest ideas have the potential to shape a more sustainable and resilient tomorrow, and how even a single individual can spark global change.
* Agenda is tentative and subject to confirmation.