Making waste work

Luca Di Mario’s PhD in Engineering focused on sustainable business models for turning solid waste and waste water in developing countries into a useful resource, such as energy.?

That work has stood him in good stead for his work at the Asian Development Bank where he is currently Senior Advisor to the Vice President for Finance and Risk Management after several years working on the ground on urban development projects in the region.

Luca’s career path towards the ADB began before he finished his PhD when he did an internship there, working on an assignment that was aligned to his PhD topic. He found himself in the Philippines for three months and got to know the ADB well.?

After finishing his PhD he did some consultancy work with the World Health Organization in Peru, Senegal and Jordan, working on building the methodology to track the Sustainable Development Goals 6.2 and 6.3 (sanitation and waste water). But his sights were set on the ADB.?

Luca [2009] applied for their young professionals programme and started in October 2016, having completed his PhD in March. Usually it’s a three-year programme where participants rotate between corporate work and operations. However, Luca started working in operations on urban water projects in South Asia, mainly in India, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Bhutan, which was a perfect match for him so he stayed.?

In 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic, he had his first project as team leader approved. This was to establish a sustainable regional solid waste management system, including a waste-to-energy facility, for the Greater Malé area and neighbouring outer islands in the Maldives.?

After the Maldives, Luca was assigned as team leader of a water supply project in Bhutan, which was approved in 2022, and then he moved on to another in Bangladesh on water supply, sanitation and solid waste management.?

Luca states that working for a multilateral development bank like the ADB is not only about proving finance to developing countries but supporting the bank’s clients with innovative solutions, knowledge and capacity building to address increasing development challenges, which are exacerbated by climate change.

It also means ensuring that no-one is left behind, especially the most vulnerable members of society such as women, children, or people with a disability, and that environmental and social safeguards are met because these are critical to ensure sustainable development and poverty reduction. Finally, says Luca, “it is not just about building a project or a facility but ensuring it is sustainable and can operate or provide benefits in the long term.”

Luca says he has been fortunate that there has been a lot of continuity in his career since Cambridge and he has been able to build on the knowledge of urban infrastructure relating to water and solid waste that he gained in his PhD. But in 2022, he got an offer to work for and support a Vice President of the ADB, as her Senior Advisor which has given him a broader outlook on the bank's work.?

He still pinches himself about how far he has come from the small rural town in Italy that he grew up in, the son of an English teacher and bank worker. “What I am doing was unimaginable really,” he says. “When I did my undergraduate course in Engineering in Italy, the maximum aspiration was to become a water engineer in a local public utility. Thanks to my master’s and then my PhD at Cambridge the whole world was opened up for me.”?

Read the full interview here.