Environmental Defense Fund Receives Dickinson's Rose-Walters Prize for Environmental Activism
EDF Executive Director Amanda Leland accepts the 2025 Rose-Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism from Dickinson President John E. Jones III '77, P'11. Photo by Dan Loh.
EDF staff will visit Dickinson for a special residency
by Craig Layne
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is the 2025 recipient of the Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism. This annual $100,000 prize is awarded to individuals or organizations significantly impacting responsible action for the planet and its people. EDF is being honored in recognition of its decades of work on environmental issues. Representatives from EDF accepted this prestigious award during Dickinson’s Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 18.
“From reducing air pollution and transforming fisheries to advancing climate policy and environmental justice, EDF has never stopped evolving,” says Rose-Walters Prize Committee member Genesis Whitlock ’25, who presented the prize to EDF Executive Director Amanda Leland during Commencement.
With more than 3.5 million members, supporters and activists, EDF creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. Working across the globe, EDF links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships to turn solutions into action. It works for progress on methane pollution, clean electricity, clean transportation, forests, fisheries and oceans, healthy communities, fuels and feedstocks, agriculture, water, food, carbon markets, and other critical environmental challenges.
EDF pioneered groundbreaking corporate partnerships, including Walmart’s successful effort to cut a billion metric tons of climate pollution and GM’s plan to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2035. In 2023, the organization helped secure commitments from 50 oil and gas companies, representing 40 percent of global oil sales, to reduce their methane pollution by 90 percent by 2030. The organization was a primary advocate for the overhaul of America’s chemical safety laws in 2016 and the passage of historic climate investments in 2022.
The Rose-Walters Prize recognizes EDF’s many accomplishments and provides opportunities for Dickinson students and faculty. During the 2025-26 academic year, EDF staff will visit Dickinson for a multiday residency Oct. 28 through Oct. 30. Previously, the Rose-Walters Prize has honored climate advocates including Elizabeth Kolbert, Mark Ruffalo, Bill McKibben and Lisa Jackson and organizations including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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Published July 15, 2025