Green Fee Advisory Council to open public portal on Oct. 15, seeking community input

Beginning Oct. 15, 2025, the Green Fee Advisory Council will be accepting ideas from the public for projects that could receive Green Fee funding to implement.

Ideas and suggestions may be submitted through a digital portal available via  GFAC’s website, greenfeehawaii.org. For each idea, members of the public are requested to provide information about the potential project including but not limited to impact area(s), cost, geography and potential partnerships with local government agencies. To preview a full list of questions, click here.

GFAC highly values the decades of work that Hawaiʻi residents, nonprofits, community organizations and companies have invested in conservation, resilience and sustainable tourism, as well as the resulting insight and depth of knowledge held in these areas. 

“We’re eager to hear from community members about what kinds of initiatives they would like to see Green Fee funds support. At the same time, it’s important that everyone understand that this part of the process does not represent a formal request for proposals (RFP), request for information (RFI), or letter of intent (LOI) and is not a pathway to receive funding,” said Jeff Mikulina, Green Fee Advisory Council chair. 

“GFAC’s role is to evaluate and make funding priority recommendations through the Governor’s executive supplemental budget, however, the legislature will make the final appropriations decisions,” he added. 

Green Fee funds may only be used for three purposes: natural resource enhancement (environmental stewardship); infrastructure resilience and hazard mitigation; and visitor impact mitigation and experience (sustainable tourism). Funds must be appropriated to state agencies or counties that can then partner with other local organizations to execute projects. 

GFAC is currently in the process of developing criteria for evaluating funding priorities and will share criteria with the public once it is complete via the GFAC website. The Project Ideas Portal will remain open for public input until 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2025.