The George Washington University joined 32 other universities Tuesday to launch the Billion Dollar Green Challenge – a commitment to collectively invest $1 billion within two years in self-managed green revolving funds that finance energy efficiency upgrades on campus.
As one of the Challenge’s founding circle members, George Washington is the only institution in the nation’s capital to take the lead in making this commitment. The rationale behind the Billion Dollar Challenge is the high performance of existing green revolving funds. According to a report by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, green revolving funds have a median annual return on investment of 32 percent.
The Billion Dollar Green Challenge launched at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference in Pittsburgh – the largest gathering to date on higher education sustainability.
“We’re transforming energy efficiency upgrades from perceived expenses to high-return investment opportunities,” said Mark Orlowski, executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, which is coordinating the Challenge along with 13 partner organizations. “George Washington University should be commended for rising to The Challenge and investing in energy efficiency improvements on campus.”
Some of the founding circle members of the Challenge, including George Washington, have already established funds. In April 2010, GW announced a new, student-proposed $2 million revolving fund for sustainability that improves buildings on campus by making them more energy efficient. Since last spring, almost $1 million of the fund has been allocated to sustainable projects including occupancy sensors, daylight sensors, chilled water connections, summer boiler replacements and variable speed drive fans. The first year of the projects has resulted in savings of $115,000 and avoided 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, said Sophie Waskow, GW sustainability project facilitator.
“GW is proud to be a member of the Founding Circle of the Billion Dollar Green Challenge,” said Meghan Chapple-Brown, director of GW’s Office of Sustainability. “We are looking forward to sharing best practices with peer institutions and advancing the dialogue around financing for energy efficiency.”
Ms. Chapple-Brown and Ms. Waskow as well as Mark Ellis, a sustainability project facilitator, represented GW at the AASHE conference.
Guided by a 34-member expert advisory council, the Billion Dollar Green Challenge offers technical assistance, best practices sharing, access to an advanced web-based tool for managing green revolving funds, peer institutions’ project-specific data and invitations to specialized webinars and conferences to its participants. The goal for GW and other universities with established green revolving funds is to help inspire leadership in the field and contribute to case studies and research on the efficacy of the existing funds.
“The Billion Dollar Challenge will lead to exciting progress in reducing operating expenses and greenhouse gas emissions, while creating regenerating funds for future projects,” said Ms. Waskow.
The Billion Dollar Green Challenge has received financial support from various groups including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Merck Family Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
“The Billion Dollar Green Challenge asks our higher education systems to invest in green revolving funds to support the campus sustainability movement. AASHE supports the Challenge in that these funds will help institutions become more sustainable and will help the higher education community understand the commitment they are making to a just and sustainable future,” said Paul Rowland, AASHE executive director.