WINNIPEG — Jim MacNeill, Chairman of the Board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, today announced the appointment of David Runnalls as President and CEO of the Winnipeg-based Institute. Runnalls has been Interim President of IISD since November 1998.

"We are delighted to be able to appoint someone of David's experience and accomplishment as our new President," MacNeill said. The appointment came after a worldwide search conducted by a Committee of the Board led by Jack MacLeod of Calgary, former CEO of Shell Canada. In addition to Winnipeg's Hartley Richardson, the Committee also included Dian Cohen, Canadian Vice-Chair Jacques Gérin, International Vice-Chair Edward S. Ayensu and MacNeill.

Runnalls has been at the forefront of the environment and development debate for more than 25 years. He was the Research Director for Only One Earth, the book that set the tone for the first global environment conference in 1972. He worked with Barbara Ward to found the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. He was the Director of the IIED office in London for seven years and helped to establish its keystone programs in energy, human settlements, information and monitoring the environmental performance of the foreign aid agencies. In 1981 he moved to Washington where he made IIED's North American office into one of the premier players in the international environment arena in the United States.

He returned to Canada in 1988 where he helped to create the Environment Program at the Institute for Research on Public Policy. He left IRPP in 1993 to become a Senior Fellow of IISD and Senior Adviser to both the President of the International Development Research Centre and the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.

MacNeill went on to say that, "with David on board as President and with a new strategic plan to focus the activities of the Institute, the IISD is well placed to enter the millennium and strengthen its role as one of the international leaders in sustainable development."

For further information, please contact Lael Dyck, Office of the President, at (204) 958-7707.