Empowering the poor, saving the planet: interview with Ashok Khosla

Today Online 11 Dec 07;

He's an environmental thinker and one of the world's leading experts on sustainable development. Dr Ashok Khosla taught Harvard University's first undergraduate course on the environment back in the '60s.

For the last 25 years, he has been chairman of Development Alternatives, a non-profit organisation that develops and promotes environmentally-friendly and commercially viable businesses. These include companies that manufacture low-cost roofing tiles and transform agricultural waste to fuel.

In 2002, he was awarded the United Nations-Sasakawa Environment Prize — the Nobel Prize of the environment world.

He spoke to Esther Ng (estherng@mediacorp.com.sg) recently about his passion for the green movement at Indochine's roundtable talks on corporate social responsibility.

What was it like to champion the green cause way before it became popular?

My professor, Roger Revelle, was the first person in the world to discover the effects of global warming as early as 1958.

But because the study was very early, it was something unfamiliar, and therefore something that people didn't quite relate to. But what was known was that species were beginning to disappear; DDT (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) was getting into the bodies of penguins in the South Pole; and pollution from factories was affecting the quality of our air and land.

You've been described as "an individual who personifies the hopes and dreams of billions trapped in the indignity of acute deprivation". Give us an idea of what this "acute deprivation" is?

Living in Singapore, it's hard to imagine the kind of poverty some 2 or 3 billion people live in. They face hunger, crime and marginalisation. Many people die from malnutrition and disease.

The fact is half the people in the world live on less than $3 a day — it's very hard to live on that anywhere in the world.

You're one of the few academics who put what they teach into practice. Tell us what you have done for the rural poor.

I set up Development Alternatives 25 years ago. We've developed technologies that have enabled communities to set up small businesses to supply things that everyone needs like roofing tiles, unfired bricks, recycled paper, toilets and energy.

How is your development scheme different from the Grameen Bank?

The Grameen Bank is about giving microcredit of say, $500, for people to set up a cottage industry.

Our work is the next level up from the Grameen Bank. We help small entrepreneurs generate eight to 10 jobs and profit to improve their business.

How do you go about convincing governments and businesses that it is in their interest to implement environmentally sustainable practices?

It's been pretty hard to create not just the awareness but the intention to make a change in those sectors.

I wouldn't say every government feels the same way, but I think in the next 10 years this is going be a major commitment of every government.

Part of it is because these issues are more visible simply because things are getting worse — you can't hardly avoid seeing the problems of managing waste and pollution — and part of it I think is we are beginning to be more demanding about the quality of our lives.

What are the stumbling blocks for sustainable development?

I'd say greed and short-term self interest. Having said that, I believe we can make this world a better place with the help of the media.

What do you think about your former student, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore's efforts in raising environmental consciousness on a global scale?

He's done a terrific job — I think he's single-handedly gone out and proselytised and preached for a better world.

But I do think that we need other Al Gores to deal with issues of loss of species and the lives of the poor. The biggest problem I think today continues to be the existence of poverty and we do need to address this.