"In order to comprehensively manage the climate crisis, we need breakthrough innovations, the kind that will only be possible through significant investment in university research," says Stewart Resnick, chairman and president of The Wonderful Company and a senior member of the Caltech Board of Trustees. "Science and bold creativity must unite to address the most pressing challenges facing energy, water, and sustainability."

This transformative commitment will support Caltech's investigators as they pursue research in solar science, climate science, energy, biofuels, decomposable plastics, water and environmental resources, and ecology and biosphere engineering. Ultimately, this initiative will bring together experts from across the physical sciences, life sciences, and engineering. Working in shared facilities with access to unparalleled instrumentation, Institute scientists and engineers will advance novel solutions to problems that extend beyond a single discipline. To ensure uninterrupted support for this critical area of research and for the development of breakthrough technologies, a permanent endowment will be established to fund the work of researchers across Caltech's academic divisions and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech manages for NASA.

"Sustainability is the challenge of our times," says Caltech president Thomas F. Rosenbaum. "Stewart and Lynda Resnick's generosity and vision will permit Caltech to tackle issues of water, energy, food, and waste in a world confronting rapid climate change. The Resnick Sustainability Institute will now be able to mount efforts at scale, letting researchers across campus follow their imaginations and translate fundamental discovery into technologies that dramatically advance solutions to society's most pressing problems."

"The risks we face due to climate change present daunting challenges. The discoveries, inventions and innovations that will be spanned by this incredible gift will be transformative," notes Steven Chu, co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and former Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama. "The generosity of Lynda and Stewart Resnick is a lasting commitment for the future well-being of our children, our grandchildren, and our planet."