The Global Institute of Sustainability evolved from over 30 years of environmental research conducted by the Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University (ASU). In 1997, Charles Redman became the new director of the Center. In 2004, Julie A. Wrigley contributed $15 million to ASU to establish the Global Institute of Sustainability and from the Institute grew the School of Sustainability which opened in 2007, with another $10 million donation from Ms. Wrigley. Dr. Redman is now the director of the School and as of July 1, 2007 Jonathan Fink is the Julie A. Wrigley Director of the Institute.
The Institute conducts research, education, and problem-solving related to sustainability, with a special focus on urban environments. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities: global sustainability cannot be achieved without making cities sustainable. The Institute initiates and nurtures work on issues of sustainability across many departments on the four campuses of ASU, and collaborates with other academic institutions, governments, businesses and industries, and community groups locally, nationally, and globally.
How can urban areas achieve a sustainable water supply, maximize energy independence, maintain biodiversity, and adapt to climate change? How can they maintain human, environmental, and economic health while also providing space and livelihood and accommodating cultural diversity for ever-growing numbers of people? Answering these questions requires an innovative and interdisciplinary approach, because urban environments involve complex interactions among and between human and natural systems.
Greater Phoenix is one of the fastest-growing urban environments in the US, and as such is a preeminent laboratory for solving problems that face urban areas around the globe. Here water, energy, heat-island, transportation, and immigration issues are exacerbated by the fast pace of growth and the limitations of an extremely arid climate. As we strive to discover new knowledge and develop new solutions for our own region, we also provide models and solutions that can work in Los Angeles, New York, Dubai, and Beijing.
