ACRP Research Report 205 provides guidance for determining if establishing a dedicated revolving fund for sustainability projects is the right funding approach for your airport. The report also provides instructions on how to implement and best utilize this solution. Green revolving funds (GRFs) offer an alternative approach for investing in projects that generate operational savings and will provide a way to advance an airport's sustainability goals.
While there are several potential sources for funding airport sustainability projects (capital budget, utility rebates and subsidies, and competitive grants such as FAA 's Voluntary Airport Lower Emissions (VALE)program),these sources each have challenges in terms of use and availability. An innovative approach to address these challenges is to establish and make use of a revolving fund for sustainability projects tailored to airports. By adopting this approach, airports will gain the ability to track savings or revenues from other capital projects and apply those benefits to new sustainability projects. airport could then leverage those financial benefits
into flexible, self-financing opportunities for future sustainability projects.
Research under ACRP Project 02-77 included several non-airport related case examples that have managed GRFs for over a decade as well as two airports along with a description of potential funding sources and options to establish the initial seed funding for the revolving fund. Additional resources consist of process flow diagrams that identify the critical decision-making steps necessary to develop and optimize the revolving fund; description of effective performance tracking mechanisms; and educational resources and engagement strategies to achieve consensus among internal and external stakeholders.
The research team was led by staff from Rocky Mountain Institute in association with Cadmus, Sustainable Endowments Institute and Frasca & Associates, LLC.
