Richard Goldman | Set up 'Green Nobel,' 90

Richard Goldman, 90, the San Francisco philanthropist who created the Goldman Environmental Prize to reward grassroots activism around the world, died Monday, said Amy Lyons, executive director of the foundation that awards the prize.

Launched in 1989, the $150,000 Goldman Prize is informally dubbed the "Green Nobel." It is awarded annually to six people "who chose to take great personal risks to safeguard the environment."

The 2010 recipients included a public-interest attorney from Swaziland, a Polish activist who fought to protect a wilderness area from a highway development, and a Costa Rican whose work led that country to halt shark-finning.

"Goldman Prize recipients are proof that ordinary people are capable of doing truly extraordinary things," Mr. Goldman wrote previously in a letter posted on the prize website.

Mr. Goldman and his wife, Rhoda, who died in 1996, began awarding the honors after realizing the environmental world did not have a Nobel-like prize honoring grassroots environmental work. "The Goldman Prize has served as a real inspiration to environmental activists around the world," said Jacob Scherr of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Mr. Goldman founded Goldman Insurance Services in 1949. It was sold to Willis Insurance in 2001. - AP