Our Team - The Club of Rome - India
Dr. Ashok Khosla
Trustee, Indian National Association for the Club of Rome
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Ashok Khosla chairs the Board of the thirty-four year-old Development Alternatives Group. Headquartered in New Delhi, the DA Group was among the first civil society organizations set up to address the issues of sustainable development as a whole. It also pioneered the concept of social enterprise, creating business-like approaches for eradicating poverty and conserving the natural resource base. |
About four decades ago a young Ashok Khosla came to the conclusion that the world leaders would have to act fast and find solutions to the world’s social and environmental problem in a manner that would hit the problem at its root cause; which never meant shutting down of pollution causing agents and agencies ; or not enjoying comforts of technology. All it meant was decoupling resource from development, using them judiciously while being inclusive, socially fair and environmentally sustainable. In a nutshell tweaking lifestyles to live in modern and moderate way and tweaking policies to make them resource efficient and socially equitable.His idea of using technology to the betterment of the society and the planet have found space in the world and reinvented thinking of thousands across the globe. It has given life to one of India’s arid most region Bundelkhand, restoring abandoned villages and lives, rejuvenating farms, recycling wastes and regenerating ground water.
After post-graduate degrees in experimental physics from Cambridge and Harvard Universities, Ashok Khosla became Director of the Indian Government’s first Environment Office in 1972 and then Director of Infoterra at UNEP in 1976. Since 1983 he has been Chairman of Development Alternatives, a social enterprise that promotes commercially viable and environmentally friendly technologies.
Dr. Khosla is also Co-Chair of the UN’s International Resource Panel and member of the China Council for International Environment and Development. He is in board on board of CEE and WRI. He was the President of IUCN (2008 to 2012) and Club of Rome (2005 to 2012) and is a recipient of The Order of the British Empire (OBE), a Senior Ashoka Fellow, Patron of LEAD-India and has received the UN Sasakawa Environment Prize, the Zayed Environment Prize, the WWF Duke of Edinburgh Medal, and the Schwab Foundation Outstanding Social Entrepreneur and the Stockholm Challenge Award. He has a BA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a PhD in Experimental Physics from Harvard University.
Dr. Ashok Khosla is honored with the UNEP Science-Policy Lifetime Award this year for his services to the environment, in the betterment to the lives of others.He was honored with the award at a reception on May 19, 2016, at the UNEA Science Policy Forum.
His positions at innumerable global and national forums have impacted millions of lives beyond calculation. A list of his positions and achievements are attached in the successive documents.
