Yeah,
sustainability, some people think it's just an overused word, but I don't
think so, I think it's important for me, it means living and developing
systems and businesses that can continue into the future and harmony with
nature because we all know that we absolutely require a healthy
environment to be able to survive and thrive. And this focus of
sustainability essentially is allowing that to happen for diversity and
growth. It really starts with an individual, everybody feels like they
have to have a big idea and in order to make something happen and it's
important to have a vision, but I always go back to the feet in the mud,
what are we doing personally to take a responsibility
to affect our outcomes within our own home, within our own lives, within
our own house, within our own community. The fantastic thing about rob and
Melanie Walton is the way that they approach philanthropy. So uh it's a
family that's engaged in um world changing things, but in a way where they
try to bring everybody together, so they are highly unusual among
philanthropists in the sense that they focus on how to design a
differentiated outcome, not for a university or for a company or for a not
for profit, but for society, rob and Melanie have a laser beam focused on
making sure that their philanthropy has a significant impact and I think
they show that certainly through ASU and their investments in a suit, but
throughout their investments in the community and I admire their passion
and commitment to this community greatly. I think the sustainability
initiatives within geos and within the Alton sustainability solutions
initiatives that we've supported are all a part of that. It's very
exciting for us. Rob Walton joined the board for sustainability early on
as it was growing and building the foundation for our work today through
his leadership and Melanie's work at women and philanthropy, they have
built up a collaborative effort within the university focused on
sustainability outcomes from the city of phoenix perspective. I think
because of the Waltons we have been able to get a good understanding of
sustainability from the city of phoenix perspective as it relates to a
goal that has been set by mayor and council to divert 40% of trash from
the landfill by the year 2020. And to do that we do need the partnership
and the help from W. S. S. I, which is the Walton sustainability solutions
initiative, the Waltons gift to Arizona State University specifically for
these global institute of sustainability has been enormously important to
us because it gave us the opportunity to begin exploring a number of areas
that we knew were important to sustainability, but where we really didn't
have the internal resources to do so, I think ASU has taken on the the
challenge of educating our young people connecting with the community and
supporting the community, both our local community, the state and way
beyond. So we're just proud to be associated with a shoe and with its very
ambitious programs, you know, finance becomes a lot of different forms and
uh rob and Melanie in in my opinion or what I call strategic
philanthropists, they integrate their philanthropy across everything they
do and this is something that that rob and Melanie are very passionate
about their passionate about the environment, sustainability and to
integrate their passion across everything they do is just again, a great
example of how they're making a contribution to society. The Waltons, both
rob and Melanie are intimately involved, they're intellectually involved
there
emotionally involved that is there a part of how do you make this work? So
it's fantastic what I call engaged, highly transformative design oriented
philanthropy, rob's father created walmart and with the vision of save
money live better. And that's really the tagline in tomato and and I
really think sustainability is part of that plan. If you save nature,
we're going to live better if nature doesn't thrive, we're not going to
thrive or survive. So, so really it's in our best interest in everyone's
best interest to save nature to live better. Yeah,