Expanding the Billion Dollar Green Challenge

As 2018 comes to a close, we wanted to provide a quick update about an important change to the Billion Dollar Green Challenge. After seven successful years under the current model, The Challenge will be eliminating the annual administrative fee paid by participants. Starting with each member’s renewal in 2019, there will be no fee to participate in The Challenge going forward.

Alongside this change, access to GRITS Unlimited will no longer be automatically included as part of The Challenge. Instead, members will get free GRITS Basic access and the opportunity to upgrade to GRITS Unlimited at 50% off the normal cost.

We’ve made this change for a number of reasons, including to encourage more schools, municipalities, hospitals, and other organizations to join The Challenge without needing to get any type of budget approval. We hope to expand participation to more completely represent the numerous green revolving funds across the country. We also recognize that while many members of The Challenge use GRITS, some institutions do not, and this change will align the cost of GRITS Unlimited access with those that use it.

While Second Nature took a leading role in The Challenge in 2018, including handling invoicing, SEI will resume the role of managing The Challenge in 2019. Because there will be no further invoicing for The Challenge in 2019, SEI will also be handling invoicing for GRITS for those institutions who want continued GRITS Unlimited access.

Going forward, the best contact for both The Billion Dollar Green Challenge and GRITS will be Mark, Aaron, and the SEI team. Second Nature will continue to be a key partner in The Challenge, and SN and SEI recently announced a new GRITS partnership. See the announcement here.

We’re excited about the future growth of the Billion Dollar Green Challenge. In fact, we want to welcome The College of William & Mary as the most recent addition to The Challenge with a $1 million green revolving fund commitment.

Please be in touch if you have any questions.