Lane Community College

Living Green Revolving Fund

Lane Community College’s Living Green Revolving Fund was inspired by examples of other successful GRF funds in the Billion Dollar Green Challenge. In January 2016, Lane Community College replaced its original Energy Carryover reinvestment fund, established in 2006, in favor of a true revolving fund model for sustainability. In this revolving fund, dedicated capital is set aside in an account up front and is sustained by the money repaid from borrowers with savings and any incentives collected for energy, water, recycling, and resource conservation projects. Using the college’s 2004/2005 baseline, the Living Green Revolving Fund aims to offset approximately 10 percent (1,500,000 kWh) of the college’s total electricity and approximately 33 percent (100 tons) of the total land-filled material from Lane’s facilities.

Seed money for the Living Green Revolving Fund has been allocated from the old Energy Carryover fund and will be overseen by Lane’s Institute of Sustainable Practices. Applicants will have access to coaches and other resources to assist them through the loan fund application and project implementation processes. To find out more, visit https://www.lanecc.edu/sustainability.

The higher education participants in The Challenge are managed by Second Nature. To learn more about how Second Nature plans to expand use of GRFs in higher education, visit their page!