Live Green! Revolving Loan Fund

Front of LIve Green! Revolving Loan Fund documentGot an energy-saving or other sustainability-focused project idea for your campus building or office? Through the Live Green! Initiative’s Live Green! Revolving Loan Fund, you can put your idea into practice and get the savings started.  

The Live Green! Revolving Loan Fund provides interest-free loans for campus projects that promote energy conservation and sustainability and provide a return on the investment through increased efficiencies including (but not limited to): resource use, financial savings and emissions reductions.

Loan recipients repay their loans through savings derived from the implementation of their project.  As the loan fund is replenished, through loan repayments, the loan can “revolve” and fund additional sustainability more energy conservation projects on campus. After the loan has been repaid, the ongoing savings is retained by the loan recipient to use in whatever manner will most benefit their goals and priority initiatives.   

Iowa State’s green loan fund is one of only 76 that have been established on college campuses in the United States and Canada. The Live Green! Revolving Loan Fund has been recognized for its contributions in furthering campus sustainability initiatives and included in various Sustainable Endowments Institute publications on the subject including:  

  • Green Revolving Funds: A Guide to Implementation & Management (2013)
  • Greening the Bottom Line - Case Studies of Green Revolving Loan Funds (2012, 2011)

In support of the Sustainable Endowment Institute’s Billion Dollar Green Challenge, aimed at increasing financial investment in campus sustainability, Iowa State University’s Office of Sustainability served on the development team for GRITS (The Green Revolving Investment Tracking System), a web-based tool designed to help manage every aspect of an institution’s green revolving fund (GRF) including aggregate and project-specific financial, energy, and carbon data, as well as serve as a resource library. 

 

Loan Fund Objectives and Process