More and more people are concentrating in major urban centers. While cities are full of people and possibilities, this is far from making them welcoming environments. Loneliness and anxiety are common in the fast-paced life of the "concrete jungle," and nature may hold the key to alleviating these feelings.

Numerous studies have been published showing how contact with nature positively affects our health. Listening to birds chirping, getting your hands in the dirt, or spending time in contact with greenery—all of this benefits our physical and mental well-being. Now, researchers have shown that green spaces also help alleviate feelings of loneliness.

As the global population increasingly concentrates in urban centers, land in major cities is becoming progressively more expensive. Meanwhile, rising sea levels driven by climate change threaten the housing of millions worldwide—it is estimated that 800 million people will be at risk by 2050.

Living on water could offer a solution to both of these major challenges. This very premise inspired a new neighborhood in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands—a country with a long history of adapting to environmental adversity, where a quarter of the land lies below sea level.

Bringing lighting to those in need using solar energy and affordable materials. This is the mission of the NGO Litro de Luz, which, during a three-day campaign, positively impacted the quality of life of 173 families from riverside communities living along the banks of the Rio Negro in the Amazon.

Rubber from discarded tires can replace 100% of conventional aggregates used in manufacturing concrete. This is what engineers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have discovered. The concrete made with the material meets building codes and promises to boost the circular economy.

This “greener concrete” uses rubber from discarded tires instead of gravel and crushed stone. According to the team that developed the material, the new concrete is lighter and promises to significantly reduce manufacturing and transportation costs.

A UN survey revealed that in 2018, approximately 55% of the world's population lived in cities. This figure is projected to reach 60% by 2030. If urban centers are to become home to so many, evaluating these spaces and ensuring quality of life is essential – a challenge when considering population density and the impact of such large numbers.

Yet, urban living does not have to mean being cut off from nature, surrounded by gray and concrete. Green cities are proof of this. While life in urban centers poses a series of challenges, it also presents an opportunity to find solutions that transform these spaces, fostering significant and necessary societal change.

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Paradise beaches can quickly lose their appeal for tourists when invaded by sargassum, a brown algae of the genus *Sargassum C. Agardh* distributed across tropical and subtropical oceans. In Mexico's Riviera Maya, this seaweed was once considered a major problem. However, Omar de Jesús Vazquez Sánchez saw it as a raw material for homebuilding—transforming sargassum into sustainable bricks.

Researchers from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island have published a study showing that New York City is sinking under the weight of its countless, massive buildings. The skyscraper density of the Big Apple is increasing the risk of flooding in the city.

In addition to flooding and sea level rise driven by climate change, the risk for New Yorkers is growing because the city is sinking by an average of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, with some areas sinking at twice that rate.

Architects Amit and Britta Knobel Gupta moved from London, England, to New Delhi, India, and confronted a severe problem: air pollution unlike anything they had ever seen. To help make the air more breathable and the city more livable, the couple developed a tower designed to purify the air through design. “Our main business is architecture; we didn't want to get into air purification,” Amit said. “But the pollution here was simply unacceptable. It’s very bad.”

And they are right. A study published by the medical journal *The Lancet* revealed that in 2019 alone, air pollution caused nearly 1.6 million deaths in India. New Delhi is regularly shrouded in smog, with vehicle emissions, crop burning, and coal-fired power plants all contributing to the decline in the city's quality of life. It was against this backdrop that the newcomers decided to take action.

Many people are in need of shelter. War, extreme weather events, and famine... Unfortunately, these crises are frequent and lead to large-scale migration. Welcoming individuals in extremely vulnerable situations is a challenge. Ensuring comfort, well-being, and dignity is a humanitarian imperative. Today, there are around 103 million displaced people worldwide, and climate change could significantly increase this number.

London is one of the world's great metropolises and faces a challenge common to urban centers: air pollution caused by fossil fuel vehicles. To combat this issue, the city established Low Emission Zones in 2008, fining large vehicles operating with pollutant emissions above established limits.

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A study released by Project Drawdown shows that at this very moment, we have immediate access to at least 76 solutions to curb climate change. The proposed solutions are relatively simple, and the cost of implementing them is less than the cost of inaction.

Les Avanchets is a Swiss town where the majority of residents grow their own food in home gardens. Beyond cultivation, trading food is also common practice: those with surplus carrots trade them for cabbage or lemons, ensuring everyone has access to a healthy, diverse, and pesticide-free diet.

Victoria is a Canadian city famous for its flower gardens. Its climate favors the cultivation of different types of flowers, earning the city the reputation of Canada's flower capital, or the "Garden City." However, the coronavirus pandemic has slightly changed this landscape. The city's gardening team has prioritized planting vegetable seedlings to be distributed free of charge, as public interest in growing one's own food has grown considerably during this period.

On June 18, the fifth anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si’ – Pope Francis’s encyclical calling for global unity in combating climate change – the Vatican published new guidelines containing more than 200 recommendations for environmental protection.

The document, titled “Journeying Towards Care for Our Common Home: Five Years After Laudato Si’,” suggests practical measures to curb global warming and issues stark warnings about the dangers of environmental degradation. It calls on the world to decarbonize the energy and economic sectors, making renewable energy accessible to all, and advocates for fossil fuel subsidy reform and CO2 emission taxation. 

Warsaw, Poland, has become the second city to receive public art projects that, in addition to beautifying the landscape, clean the air. Painted by local artists, the massive mural uses special, sun-activated pigments capable of filtering the air.

The mural was produced with titanium dioxide, which attracts pollutants and transforms them into harmless nitrates thanks to a sun-activated chemical process. Through this process, the artwork can purify its surrounding air, an action equivalent to the work of 720 trees.

Organic urban agriculture, renewable energy, and a breathtaking landscape. All of these elements come together at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. TURF (Thammasat University Rooftop Farm) is the largest green roof in Asia, spanning over 70,000 square meters. Designed by the architecture and urbanism firm LANDPROCESS, the area was envisioned as a solution for green urban development.

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Cities around the world are welcoming the colors and benefits of murals painted with photocatalytic paint, which is known for helping to clean the air. The murals are part of the Converse City Forests project, developed by the brand behind the famous All Star sneakers. The goal is to paint more than 14,000 square meters of murals worldwide by the end of this year. Together, they are equivalent to planting approximately 40,000 trees.

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October 16 marked World Food Day. On this date in 2020, the Stop Hunger Institute launched a project that includes a community garden and training and educational initiatives for the Paraisópolis community, a favela in São Paulo's South Zone.

Developed in partnership with the Instituto Escola do Povo, the project establishes a new space of approximately 900 square meters for growing vegetables. The goal is to educate, train, and distribute the harvest to registered community residents, ensuring access to healthier food.