Southeast Asia Holds the Key to Nature-Positive Palm Oil
Mohd Yunus
A nature-positive approach to agriculture, and specifically palm oil plantations, can marry mandates with production.

Mohd Yunus
A nature-positive approach to agriculture, and specifically palm oil plantations, can marry mandates with production.
Marco Kamiya|Wang Xingping|Dong Mingjuan
Industrial parks remain the workhorse of manufacturing-led development, but they are sometimes built as enclaves separated from surrounding communities. Southeast Asian governments should adopt a simple test: can workers, services and suppliers all be reached within 45 minutes?
Bao Tan-Hoang Nguyen
Governments in our region and beyond must plan today for tomorrow's floods, in a warming world. Regret can be minimised, if not eliminated.
Anoulak Kittikhoun
Anoulak Kittikhoun argues that as Laos prepares to graduate from the United Nations’ least developed country category, the bigger challenge is no longer escaping poverty but building a future defined by clean space and green growth.
Shivenes Shammugam|Jihyun Kang
Shivenes Shammugam and Jihyun Kang argue that although ASEAN countries have recognised the importance of methane mitigation, implementation remains uneven but Korea’s experience as an ASEAN dialogue partner could help bridge this gap.
Gauri Sasitharan
Gauri Sasitharan traces the evolution and decline of physical third places in Southeast Asia and the consequences for communities in the region.
Paul Teng
Food system decarbonisation is one of the main pathways chosen by ASEAN Member States to meet their obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement. Concurrent with this is the transformation of food systems from high-emission, carbon energy-intensive systems to low-carbon emission systems with improved resilience, farmer livelihoods and environmental health.
Joanne Lin|Jasmine Yeo
Joanne Lin and Jasmine Yeo show how insights from two major regional surveys in 2025 capture the forces shaping ASEAN’s confidence in a year of shifting global winds.
Muyi Yang|Xiwei Xu|David Lo
Booming growth in data centres is escalating electricity demand and risks undermining the region’s energy transition goals. Hardware improvements are insufficient; Southeast Asia must also promote energy-efficient AI software.
Gauri Sasitharan
Gauri Sasitharan argues that, in the absence of strong legal protections for mangrove and peatland conservation in ASEAN, grassroots communities are emerging as the region’s most important stewards of these ecosystems.