Amazon has announced an investment of 24 million rand (equivalent to 1.5 million US dollars) through its Right Now Climate Fund. These funds are aimed at implementing a project for transformative nature restoration and enhancing community resilience in the Soweto area of Johannesburg.
The project is being implemented with the participation of the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the City of Johannesburg Council, Johannesburg Parks and Zoo, and the organization GenderCC Southern Africa. The main objective is to restore degraded river landscapes, create hundreds of jobs, and train over 1000 women so they can turn restoration work into sources of income.
Using Amazon Web Services (AWS) technologies, a urban heat map will be created to help city officials plan further climate change adaptation. The project focuses on restoring a 130-hectare corridor of the Klip River—a vital water source for Johannesburg and its surroundings. Work includes removing invasive species and solid waste, reintroducing native plants, and stabilizing riverbanks to improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and preserve local biodiversity. Additionally, 20,000 trees will be planted in Soweto areas.
Kara Hurst, Amazon's Director of Sustainability, emphasized that significant climate action must be accompanied by economic opportunities for communities most affected by climate change. She noted that this investment demonstrates how nature restoration projects contribute not only to improving ecosystems but also to job creation, women's empowerment, and building resilience. The initiative aims to provide long-term economic opportunities for Soweto residents.
The project is expected to provide around 300 jobs in nature restoration, including fields such as gardening, urban forestry, and native plant propagation. Furthermore, it will provide training to equip over 1000 women with technical skills and business knowledge to monetize restoration activities. Four urban farms and 20 school clubs will be established to expand these opportunities. In total, the project will directly impact over 2000 people, more than half of whom are women, and benefit over 200,000 residents through improved food security, reduced heat stress, and mitigated flooding.
Restoring natural ecosystems has a direct cooling effect on urban areas. This will be further supported by developing an urban heat stress map in Johannesburg. WRI's Cool Cities Lab platform provides city officials with temperature data down to the square meter, allowing them to apply cooling methods such as tree planting, installing cool roofs, and awnings in the most needy areas. AWS provides the computing power, machine learning technologies, and engineering support to scale this platform, making it more powerful and accessible to non-technical users like planners and community leaders. Prototypes of AI assistants will be developed within this framework, enabling officials to ask simple questions about local temperature conditions, thereby enhancing Cool Cities Lab's ability to accelerate the creation of climate resilience infrastructure.
This project is based on the SUNCASA (Scaling Urban Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa) project, co-managed by IISD and WRI. This project pioneered community-led river restoration and women-led enterprise development in Johannesburg, Kigali, and Dire Dawa. Janina Shnik, SUNCASA Project Lead at IISD, stated that climate change adaptation must be driven at the local level to achieve true effectiveness. She noted that investments in community-managed conservation solutions create a multiplier effect while simultaneously restoring ecosystems and generating livelihoods.
In 2019, Amazon established the Right Now Climate Fund, a $100 million initiative supporting nature conservation and climate resilience in various global communities. Since its launch, the fund has supported over 20 projects in 17 countries, restoring over 72,500 hectares of land and protecting over 2200 species. The Soweto greening project is the fund's first investment in Sub-Saharan Africa and aligns with South Africa's Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP 2023–2027), the City of Johannesburg Council's Climate Action Plan (2022), and the National Climate Change Act (2024), all of which prioritize job creation, community development, and ecological rehabilitation.
According to the NITI Aayog report, India is capable of growing its bioeconomy to $691 billion by 2035 and to $2.6 trillion by 2047, provided that missions are implemented decisively. The bioeconomy is defined as an economic model that utilizes renewable biological materials for the production of food, energy, and industrial goods.
To realize the vision of a $2.6 trillion Indian bioeconomy by 2047, Aayog emphasized the need to transition from fragmented initiatives to a coordinated national implementation architecture. The report, titled 'Roadmap for building India as a leading bioeconomy power by 2035,' stated that with decisive and mission-oriented implementation, India can achieve these financial targets, creating over 30 million high-paying jobs and securing a place among the top three global biotechnology leaders.
Aayog also pointed out several necessary measures: establishing national bio-missions to scale priority sectors, forming authorized committees to ensure inter-ministerial coordination, conducting regulatory reforms to accelerate approvals while maintaining safety and trust, and strengthening leadership and talent reserves in life sciences. Furthermore, the creation of a Bioeconomy Growth Fund worth 50,000 crore rupees is required to support infrastructure, scaling, biotechnological production, and innovation.
The report also proposed a strategic direction for India—a shift from traditional biological research and development to artificial intelligence-based biotechnology and next-generation manufacturing. This transition must be ensured through deeper collaboration between ministries, departments, academia, industry, and startups. It was noted that early action will allow India not only to participate in this transformation but also to shape the global rules, markets, and platforms of the biological era, which may rival or surpass the disruptions caused by artificial intelligence.
The report mentioned that major global powers are already actively engaged: the United States has adopted a whole-of-government approach to biotechnological manufacturing, the European Union links biotechnology to climate and industrial competitiveness, and China is implementing five-year plans for large-scale industrialization. The next frontier in biotechnology will be determined by deep integration with AI, robotics, computational biology, and biosensor networks. NITI Aayog member Gobardhan Das stated that India's bioeconomy has entered a phase of rapid and substantial progress, which many observers call the golden age of biology, comparable to the computing revolution of the 1970s. India is at a critical juncture in the global biological age: its bioeconomy has increased sixteenfold over a decade—from $10 billion in 2014 to $195.3 billion in 2025, currently contributing 4.8% to the national GDP.
Westlake 66 represents a new model of urban connectivity, developed with a focus on landscaping and architecture generated by computational modeling. This project aims to revitalize a degraded area and establish a new civic center in Hangzhou, one of China's most dynamic cities.
Hangzhou, known for housing major technology corporations and important cultural sites, is a city that broadly incorporates both Chinese heritage and innovation. Hang Lung Properties developed Westlake 66, creating a new urban link that connects two icons of Hangzhou: the West Lake, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the historic Grand Canal.
The design concept of Westlake 66 was inspired by the 14th-century painting by Huang Gongwang, titled 'Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.' This work served as a guide for the project's approach in terms of scale, stratification, terraces, and the interaction between landscape and human beings.
Jeff Kenoff FAIA, Design Director at KPF, stated that Westlake 66 redefines Hangzhou's urban relationship between building and nature, treating the architecture itself as an urban park. The project utilized the terrain's isolation to create a central green corridor in the district, linking the West Lake to the Grand Canal through landscaping, while introducing a new multi-level public space to the city.
The development consists of five office towers, a boutique hotel, various public green areas, and an active commercial podium. Instead of presenting isolated towers, the design team conceived an urban valley, where the height of the buildings gradually decreases to allow natural light into the interior of the site. The Sky Park and terraces invite visitors to traverse the architecture, evoking the mountainous landscapes surrounding the West Lake.
The conceptual and physical focal point of Westlake 66 is the Sky Park, a 400-meter landscaped path that connects the different uses of the development, elevating public life above the podium and offering panoramic views of Hangzhou's mountains and cultural landmarks.
KPF employed computational modeling tools to generate and analyze thousands of volumetric configurations, evaluating each against multiple objectives such as solar exposure, shadow incidence, access to natural light, commercial visibility, and views. This resulted in a development where environmental performance, user well-being, and architectural expression are intrinsically linked.
A notable architectural element is the 'Urban Cell Wall,' an exclusive facade system at the podium level. This wall ensures continuity between the various programs of the development and establishes a human-scale interface between the construction and the city. Unlike traditional facades, this is a flexible system, capable of adapting to future modifications, as individual cells can house new uses and rental conditions.
Program variables, urban visibility, and environmental performance were systematized into an interchangeable set of three parts, using only 21 distinct components. The external aluminum structure defines the main modules, while glazed terracotta insertions in a five-color gradient pay homage to Hangzhou's artisanal tradition and guide pedestrians, and the infill panels—which include transparent glass, sunshades, display windows, and louvers—respond to the specific internal program.
The project obtained multiple certifications, including China Green Building 3-Star, BREEAM Excellent, and WELL Platinum. Additionally, two towers hold LEED Platinum certification, and four others are certified with the LEED Gold seal.
