UN honours scientific innovator with top environment prize

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) this evening will award Ashok Khosla, long considered one of the world's great environmental thinkers and innovators, the agency's Sasakawa Environment Prize for his nearly 40 years of work at the forefront of sustainable development issues.

The annual presentation of the prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the protection of the global environment. Mr. Khosla, who has influential academic work to his credit, was among the first to teach about the environment at Harvard University in the 1960s. In 1972, he became the founding director of India's Office of Environmental Planning and Coordination, the first national environmental agency in the developing world.

Mr. Khosla "has helped to ensure the worldwide dissemination of accurate and timely information about the environment. And he has shown the many ways in which environmentally sound development is also good economics," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a prepared message to the award ceremony, which will be delivered on his behalf by S. Iqbal Riza, Under-Secretary-General and Chef de Cabinet.

"The thread linking his work is his dedication to raising living standards of the poor, while at the same time safeguarding the earth's vital ecosystems and resources," the statement said. "By providing holistic solutions to development challenges, and by building bridges between Government, business and civil society, he has helped to chart a path towards a sustainable future, not just for the people of India, but also for people throughout the world."