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Sustainability in heavy industry is increasingly a competitiveness and security issue, not merely an ethical one. EU carbon pricing, fossil-free steel, military fuel efficiency, and Japan’s pollution reforms show how environmental costs can drive innovation. Indonesia’s coal-powered nickel boom, however, highlights the long-term economic and environmental liabilities of unsustainable industrial growth.

2026 was not a year of a single, linear narrative. It was a year in which Kuartal grew outward — into sport, into media and film, into venture capital, and into the formal structures needed to support the work our editorial team has always cared about. I want to use this letter to explain why we made them, what they have in common, and where we’re headed in 2027.

Capital With a Purpose Kuartal Impact Projects is where Kuartal’s editorial mission meets direct action. Every project featured here is a real initiative — supported by Kuartal.id, our community of readers, our partners, and our backers — working to strengthen local communities, grow new businesses and entrepreneurs, or protect the natural resources that Indonesia’s long-term […]

Kuartal Impact today announced its investment in the Rinjani-Lombok UNESCO Global Geopark and Biosphere Reserve through its support for RINJANI SELECTS, a programme designed to build and strengthen small businesses and startups creating innovative geoproducts and services connected to the region.

One year after its launch, where does Danantara stand? We look at what it was built to do, its early moves, the opportunities it could unlock, and the risks that come with concentrating so much economic power in one institution. If managed well, Danantara could become a powerful engine for Indonesia’s long-term growth. If managed badly, it could become a very expensive concentration of political and financial risk.

On August 12th, at a regional airfield in upstate New York, a 25,000-pound aircraft with a 106-foot wingspan lifted off the runway at Plattsburgh Airport and stayed aloft for 27 minutes on nothing but batteries. And this might just be what Indonesian airlines have been looking for.

As wrongful corruption convictions mount and payment arrears stretch into years, Indonesia’s B2G and BUMN contracting environment has crossed a threshold that private capital cannot ignore.

The United States enjoys a unique position in which its currency serves as the primary reserve asset, invoicing currency, and settlement medium for global trade and finance. This position allows Washington to finance large fiscal deficits, including defense spending, at relatively low cost compared with other major powers.

In the classical imagination of liberal capitalism, markets and governments perform distinct, almost complementary roles. Markets allocate capital through price signals; governments set the rules of the game. One is meant to be impersonal, the other accountable. The boundary between the two has never been perfectly clean, but for much of the post-war era it was at least intelligible. That boundary is now eroding.

Recently, the private sector has been given more leeway to develop and produce military equipments. This is a positive development as it reduces reliance on SOE’s and if managed correctly, can transform the Indonesian defense industry sector into a dual-use force that can simultaneously hasten the pursuit of self-sufficiency and becoming a major economic driver.