Arizona State University
IN-3: Innovation 3

In March 2012, Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability received $27.5 million from the Rob and Melani Walton Fund of the Walton Family Foundation. This was provided to ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability to develop and deploy promising solutions to sustainability challenges. This investment was designed entirely to support programs, which led to the creation of the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives. The investment will be distributed over a period of five years and by 2017 Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives will be self-sustaining. The Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives is broken down into eight distinctive initiatives that can be grouped together in three focus areas. The three focus areas are delivering sustainability solutions, accelerating global impact, and inspiring future leaders. Accelerating global impact is made up of two programs, one of which is the Global Sustainability Studies Program. This program focuses on providing students with opportunities to study and help solve sustainability problems in a global context. To do this, Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives helped create four study abroad opportunities focusing on a variety of sustainability issues. The Global Sustainability Studies Program also provides financial support for the four sustainability study abroad programs to Sustainability majors and minors.

Summer 2013 was the first summer that the Sustainability Solutions Scholarship was offered to 80 students. This has tripled the number of sustainability majors participating in a sustainability oriented study abroad program. The Global Sustainability Studies scholarship funding will be available to all motivated and eligible sustainability students during summer of 2014.