Today, journalists' digital desks are overflowing with press releases on research and analysis of economic scenarios. We no longer even notice the scale of certain phenomena. Yet, when claims are made that 3.5% of global GDP will need to be invested to close the global infrastructure gap, for a total of over 10.5 trillion euros by 2035 (Allianz Trade study, August 2025), it is impossible to ignore how infrastructure development is the cornerstone of unlimited capitalist growth and unstoppable human progress.

At the heart of the multidirectional flows of goods and people are roads, bridges, airports, power lines, water systems, but also basic state infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and military bases. Infrastructure is a complex entity that has immense environmental and social impacts, from land consumption to climate-changing gas emissions, from the right to education (with schools, the internet and mobility) to universal access to public services. These impacts can be both positive and dramatically negative, like any intrinsically relative economic phenomenon, meaning that they change depending on one's point of view.

This issue is therefore undertaking no easy task, as it aims to identify some key points in the great challenge of decoupling infrastructure growth from socio-environmental impacts, steering human civilisation along a trajectory of evolution and critiquing its intrinsic processes.

Deb Chachra, author of the book How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World, reminds us that infrastructure must develop to be like forests: systems powered by renewable energy (sunlight) that recycle materials, repair themselves and evolve, rather than static structures that immobilise resources. Moreover, they must become increasingly adaptive and redundant in the face of environmental and socio-political risks. Nicola D'Alessandro, from RFI, the company that manages Italy's enormous railway network, explains how major technological innovations are transforming the management of large infrastructures and how to decarbonise them. Carlo Ratti guides us through the evolution of the relationship between physical constructions and digital superstructures.

In an exclusive report, investigative journalist Stefano Vergine reveals the background to the reconstruction of Ukraine's infrastructure (it is still too early to work on Gaza), particularly its energy infrastructure, which has been most severely damaged. Giorgio Kaldor asked NATO to have a closer look into the challenge of making the Atlantic Alliance's strategic bases future-proof. We then analysed the airport sector and the innovative Airport Carbon Accreditation certification, studied the developments of the Belt and Road Initiative, reported on the largest dam ever conceived on the Chinese section of the Yarlung Tsangpo (better known by its Indian name Brahmaputra). We also explored the complexity of the maxi power lines and submarine cables of the digital world, the challenges of bridges and ports, and the centrality of predictive maintenance technologies in extending the average life of infrastructure.

As always, a complex, even contradictory view, as may be the case with regard to the infrastructure that drives our economy and our civilisation: modern temples of material spirituality, 21st-century pyramids, engineering marvels, both a brake and an accelerator on our possible future.

DOWLOAD AND READ ISSUE #59 OF RENEWABLE MATTER: INFRASTRUCTURE

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