Appointments & Professional Experience

Presently, he is Chairman, Munasinghe Institute for Development (MIND), Colombo; Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Manchester, UK; Institute Professor at the Vale Sustainable Development Institute, Federal Univ. of Para, Brazil; and Distinguished Guest Professor at Peking University, China. Previously, he was Senior Advisor/Manager, World Bank, Wash. DC, covering sustainable development, environmental policy, water, energy and transport; and Chancellor, International Water Academy, Oslo.

After working over 40 years in the international arena, he is recognized as a leading world authority on sustainable development, economics, energy and environment. He is especially known for trans-disciplinary thinking, having developed the internationally recognized, widely taught and applied discipline of Sustainomics, which provides a practical framework for making development more sustainable. Recently, he proposed the widely acclaimed new concept of Millennium Consumption Goals (MCGs) at the United Nations, to complement the Millennium Development Goals. He has had direct field experience in most developing countries, on projects involving climate change, disaster management, economics (macro and micro), environment, energy, telecommunications, transport, urban infrastructure, and water resources. 

During 1990-92, he served as Advisor to the US President's Council on Environmental Quality (PCEQ). From 1982 to 1987, Prof. Munasinghe was the Senior Advisor (Energy and Information Technology) to the President of Sri Lanka, helping to formulate and implement the national energy strategy and computer policy. He was founder Chairman, Computer and Information Technology Council (CINTEC), and served on the Presidential Commission that determined national telecommunications policy. From 1982 to 1987, he was Board Member, Natural Resources, Energy and Science Authority of Sri Lanka; Governor, Arthur Clarke Centre for Modern Technology, Sri Lanka. Since 1972, he has also served as expert advisor/consultant to many world bodies, including the UN, UNDP, UN Univ., UNESCO, ESCAP, ECLA, USAID, CIDA, IDRC, EEC, IAEA, AsDB, AfDB, IDB, etc.

He is also Board Member of Green Cross International, Switzerland; Member of the Club of Rome, Switzerland; Member of the International Advisory Board, Sustainable Consumption Institute, Univ. of Manchester, UK; Director of the Canifex International Socio Economic Development Centre (Canadian non profit foundation); and founding-Director of both the World Energy Efficiency Association (WEEA) in Washington DC, and the New Sun Foundation in Geneva. He is Patron and Founder of the Lanka Society for Sustainable Development (LASS), and President-Emeritus and Founder of the Sri Lanka Energy Managers Assoc. (SLEMA). He serves on the Editorial Boards of several international periodicals, including Advances in Climate Change Research; Ambio; China Population Resources and Environment; Climate Policy; Encyclopedia of Energy; Encyclopedia of Earth; The Energy Journal; J. Environment and Development Economics; Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Journal; Int. J. of Electrical Power and Energy Systems; Int. J. of Global Envir. Issues; Int. J. of Regulation and Governance; Open Economies Review; Pacific & Asian Journal of Energy; Solutions; Strategic Behavior and the Environment; Utilities Policy; and Wiley Interscience Reviews-Climate Change J.

Awards & Honours

Prof. Munasinghe has won a number of international prizes and honours for research and applications. Most notably, as Vice Chair, IPCC-AR4, he shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace, for efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change. He was honoured with the 2010 Sri Lanka Presidential award for excellence in scientific research. In 2009, the Open University of Sri Lanka awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (D. Litt. - Honoris Causa) in recognition of his outstanding worldwide academic and research contributions to sustainable development, energy and climate change. In 2008, he was awarded the prestigious Anita Garibaldi Gold Medal for meritorious services to humanity from the Brazilian government, and in 2007 received the Sarvodaya (Sri Lanka) Award for outstanding contributions to Humanity, Peace and Development. In 2006, he shared the Zayed International Prize for Environment (jointly with other authors) for contributions to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, and received the Swarnavahini Sri Lanka Abhimanya (Excellence) Award. In 2005 he received the Sri Lanka Presidents award for environmental excellence, for exceptional contributions in the areas of environment and sustainable development. In 2005, the President of Bangladesh presented him with the Order of Fellowship of the Independent University of Bangladesh (Honoris Causa), for exceptional contributions to economics, energy and environment. In 2003, he received the award for outstanding lifetime achievements from a consortium of 16 major professional institutions in Sri Lanka. He was awarded the 2003 Adelman-Frankel prize for unique and innovative contributions to energy research, by the US Association of Energy Economics and the International Assoc. for Energy Economics (USAEE-IAEE).

In 1998, the green award for exceptional contributions to sustainable development was presented to him at the Sixth World Congress of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists. He received the international best treatise award and medal for sustainable water resource management from the International Foundation for Water Science and Technology at the 1994 World Water Congress in Abu Dhabi. In 1990, two commemorative volumes of his selected papers in energy and electricity were issued, with felicitations from eminent experts as well as 20 leading international journals. He received the international prize for outstanding work in electric power and energy systems analysis and pricing awarded in 1988 at the Fifth Latin American and Caribbean Energy Conference. In 1987, he was honoured with the annual award for exceptional contributions to energy research and policy applications  by the International Assoc. for Energy Economics. In 1985, he received the Sinha Gold Medal for outstanding scientific achievement in Sri Lanka, from the Lions International Organization. His academic awards include the 1966 J. W. Beauchamp Prize from the Inst. of Electrical Engineers (UK), and the 1968 Albert M. Grass Prize at MIT (USA).

Prof. Munasinghe is the author of 93 scholarly books, and over three hundred and fifty technical papers in well known scientific journals -- on climate change, disasters, environment, sustainable development, energy, transport, urban infrastructure, water resources, and telecommunications. He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, USA (FWAAS), Third World Academy of Sciences, Italy (FTWAS), Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics - Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka (FNASSL), Royal Society for Arts, UK (FRSA), International Water Academy, Norway (FIWA), Institute of Electrical Technology, UK (FIET), and Institute of Engineers, Sri Lanka (FIESL).

Teaching & Training

He has taught university courses for the past 40 years, on climate change, energy, sustainable development, transport, resource management, water resources, and environmental economics, in Sri Lanka (Moratuwa Univ., Univ. of Colombo), Canada (McGill Univ., Concordia Univ.), UK (Cambridge Univ.), USA (Yale Univ., State Univ. of NY, American Univ., George Washington Univ., Univ. of Pennsylvania, Virginia State Univ.), Brazil (Federal Univ. of Para, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro), China (Peking Univ., Tsinghua Univ.), India (Institute of Economic Growth, IGIDR, and TERI Univ.), South Africa (Univ. of Cape Town), and other countries. Prof. Munasinghe is on Advisory Boards of several Universities, including Groningen Univ. (Netherlands), and Ritsumeikan Univ. (Japan). He has made numerous keynote speeches at gatherings ranging from high level international conferences to simple community meetings, worldwide. He has organized and conducted international training seminars on climate change, sustainable development, environment, economics, energy, transport, water resources, and information technology, in various parts of the world, for thousands of senior officials and students from many countries.

Other Interests

Prof. Munasinghe has represented Sri Lanka (Juniors) and Cambridge University in lawn tennis and won a number of Sri Lanka National and other titles. His interests include swimming, wind surfing, chess, bridge, amateur astronomy, saxophone playing, tai-chi, and meditation.