Ashok Khosla

Dr. Ashok Khosla at Development Alternatives

Ashok Khosla is an Indian environmentalist currently based in Delhi. He received his PhD in experimental physics from Harvard University in 1969 with a doctoral dissertation in the hyperfine structure of hydrogen halide isotopes. He is the co-chair of United Nations Environment Programme’s International Resource Panel (UNEP-IRP) and is internationally known for pioneering and contributing to “sustainable development.” He is recognized for popularizing the word and concept of “sustainability” in international forums. He was actively involved in various projects that defined the environmental views and activities of institutions such as UNEP, UNESCO, UNU, the U.S. Academy of Sciences, IUCN and ICSU/SCOPE.[1]

Early life and education

Khosla was born in Lahore on March 31, 1940. His father was a university professor and diplomat, and his mother was a college lecturer. Khosla’s family moved to Delhi from Lahore in 1947 after the Partition of India. He pursued an M.A. in Natural Sciences from Peterhouse, Cambridge University. Additionally, he completed and received his PhD in experimental physics at Harvard University in 1972. In 1965, he helped design and taught the first undergraduate course on environment at the University as an assistant to Professor Roger Revelle.

Career

Khosla was exposed to the issues of sustainable development during his time as a graduate student at Harvard University, while studying experimental physics. In 1964, Khosla met Professor Roger Revelle at the Population Center at Harvard. Revelle, who had been the head of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and science advisor to President John F. Kennedy, was a pioneer in applying science to issues of social relevance. This was a meeting of minds and Khosla quickly became a student and collaborator of Professor Revelle. They worked together closely for over a decade exploring the relationships between people, their resources, and the environment. Khosla helped Revelle design and teach the groundbreaking undergraduate course, “Natural Sciences 118." This eventually led them to jointly publish “The Survival Equation," which was the first definitive textbook on the subject.

At the time, much of the environmental literature available (for example, authors such Paul Ehrlich and the Paddock Brothers) projected an apocalyptic future, whereas the message of “The Survival Equation” was one of hope. Its view was that while it is certainly true that forces and pressures to destroy the planet’s life support systems do exist, so does the knowledge to reorient the behavior of economies and prevent this from happening. The course and the book itself, had a considerable influence on the field of resource management and the environment. In fact, “The Earth in Balance,” written by a student of the course, Al Gore, pays extensive homage to this course.

Upon completion of his PhD in experimental physics in 1972, Ashok was asked by the Government of India to establish the Office of Environmental Planning and Coordination (OEPC), the first national environmental agency in the Third World.

As director of the OEPC, he worked closely with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to introduce a broad range of methodological and institutional innovations necessary for managing environmental resources in a developing country such as India. These innovations included methods for assessing environmental impact and outcome, creating legal and institutional frameworks for pollution monitoring and control, managing the conservation of natural resources and wildlife, guidelines for the preservation of cultural heritage, and creating national institutions for research, training, and promoting awareness. Much of Khosla’s early effort was geared to what he called “strengthening the capacity” of public agencies and members of the civil society to bring about the changes needed to enhance environmental quality in the country.

At the time, Khosla was regarded as a pioneer in the emerging field of sustainable development not only in India, but at a variety of international platforms which had been set up to explore the implications of global-social phenomena. He was actively involved in various projects that defined the environmental views and activities of institutions such as UNEP, UNESCO, UNU, the US Academy of Sciences, IUCN and ICSU/SCOPE – all of which had their unique areas of action in a rapidly growing field. He was also a member of the small team that wrote the SCOPE 5 Monograph, the first definitive manual on environmental impact assessment. Khosla played an influential part in many of the early UNESCO Man and Biosphere and IUCN task forces.

Achievements

In 1976, Ashok Khosla joined the United Nations Environment Programme (at its new headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya) as the first Director of Infoterra. His primary task was to design and implement a global information system for sustainable development that would facilitate governments and international agencies to introduce environmental agendas into national decision-making. At UNEP, he was also responsible for many other activities, such as setting up the MIS, designing project approval procedures and contributing to various publications like the State of Environmental Reports.

Ashok Khosla's main achievements at UNEP include:

Development Alternatives

In 1983, Ashok set up Development Alternatives (DA), made possible by a $100,000 project grant from UNEP. Ashok's vision for DA was to create an organization that would make good business out of delivering environmentally sound development.

Recognizing that 70% of the people of India lived in villages, the organization felt that the bulk of the actions of industry and the civil society must be aimed at their needs. As a result, it combined the objectives of a civil society organization with the profit-orientation (and management discipline) of a private sector business, DA (though itself a not-for-profit entity). This created a fundamentally new niche in the Indian economy for a whole new breed of organization, which can meet social objectives in a scalable and sustainable manner. Such organizations are now known as the “Social Enterprises”. DA’s major concerns lie with the environment (specifically, the interaction of people with nature), technology (interaction of people with machines), and institutions and policies (interaction of people with people). DA has demonstrated that our choice of technologies, the existing design of our institutions, consumption patterns and production systems must be fundamentally transformed if we want to ensure the long-term ecological security of our planet.

Furthermore, technologies have to be more human in scale, less wasteful in resources and directly responsive to the basic needs of people. In a developing country such as India where economic and social disparities in a society are large, the poor tend to over utilize and destroy renewable resources out of the exigencies of survival and need. On the other hand, the rich tend to over utilize and destroy other kinds of resources, such as non-renewable resources, often out of greed. Thus, only by increasing social equity – and eradicating poverty – can we truly make an impact on environmental conservation and reduce the threats to the resource base.

In all of Ashok Khosla’s assignments, both as a manager and as a member of the governance structure, he has brought to the workplace the strongest commitment to systems, nurtured by a total dedication to openness, transparency and objectivity in decision making and information flows. His colleagues, former and current, all testify to the centrality in all the work environments he has created to what he calls the “basic non-negotiables”: integrity, fairness and excellence. These are attributes that staff members often adopt, internalize and make their own.

It is these personal and professional traits that have helped Ashok Khosla build and guide so many successful institutions at the national and international level.

Recognition

Khosla's contribution to the field of sustainability has been recognized and lauded through various awards.

- UN Sasakawa Environment Prize - Zayed International Environment Prize - WWF Duke of Edinburgh Medal - Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) - Schwab Foundation Outstanding Social Entrepreneur - Stockholm Challenge Award -Global 500 Roll of Honour of the United Nations Environment Prog. - The Golden Ark of the Netherlands Publications --“The Survival Equation”, ed with Roger Revelle, Houghton Mifflin, Boston (1970) -- More than 300 professional papers, articles and reports—The Development Alternatives monthly journal—Additional items in separate bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "Dr Ashok Khosla". devalt.org. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
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