Giving Compass' Take:

• News Deeply explores how local projects like green roofs or efficiency rebates can be assets for water agencies, opening up the spigot of funding for environmentally-friendly infrastructure.

• We, can, of course go beyond accounting details to help more communities go green, and that means being more proactive in supporting clean energy entrepreneurs and NGOs.

• Want to break down the numbers of green finance? Start here.

In the years to come, we’re likely to see a lot more “green” and distributed infrastructure projects from water utilities, like permeable pavement, rainwater capture and efficiency rebates. That’s because coming up with the money needed to scale these projects just got a lot easier.

In the water world, most big infrastructure projects like treatment facilities and pipelines are usually financed by water agencies selling bonds, which can help them raise millions of dollars for a project that only needs to be paid off a little bit at a time over many years. That’s because these projects are owned by the agencies and are considered an asset on which they can capitalize.

But turf removal programs, green roofs and other localized water projects that can have significant impact on water consumption — often referred to as “distributed infrastructure” — weren’t typically considered an asset because they weren’t actually owned by an agency. Instead rebates for these kinds of projects were funded from operating budgets, which often isn’t enough to really scale such efforts.

But the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), which is an independent organization that establishes accounting and financial standards, approved a policy implementation guide on May 7. This time one of the guidelines it addressed was Statement No. 62 (also referred to in shorthand as GASB 62).

Read the full article about the accounting policy that could fuel a green infrastructure surge by Tara Lohan at News Deeply.