[3] At the time, much of the environmental literature available (for example, authors such as 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 behaviour of economies and prevent this from happening.

[5] 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.

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.

[citation needed] 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.

[6] 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.

He was also responsible for making internal UNEP programmes more effective and efficient, as well as preparing policy papers on key issues such as the impact of consumption patterns and lifestyles on the environment and made a major contribution to the World Conservation Strategy, a defining moment in the promotion of sustainable development (1980).

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).

DA has demonstrated that humankind's choice of technologies, the existing design of our institutions, consumption patterns, and production systems must be fundamentally transformed if we want to ensure Earth's long-term ecological security.

In a developing country, such as India, where economic and social disparities in society are large, the poor tend to overutilize and destroy renewable resources out of the exigencies of survival and need.