Good afternoon and Happy New Year!

We will be having a virtual open house for all Sustainability Working Advisory Team members on Thursday, January 28 from 3-4pm. This is a great chance to kick off the new semester, say hello and meet the other sustainability team members, hear about what each team is working on, ask questions, provide feedback or words of wisdom, etc.! We hope you can attend.

Have a great week and talk to you soon!
Meredith, Morgan, and Ximing

The Resilience Team met on Wednesday, Jan. 27th for their first meeting of the Spring semester. Our clerk, Kimmy, proposed changes to our iCAP portal theme page and received comments from all team members. The Biodiversity Plan recommendation is in the final steps of gathering approval from every team member and will likely be submitted to the iWG this month. Lastly, the team had a brainstorming session for how to identify existing green jobs infrastructure and how to coordinate our environmental justice efforts with the community -- specifically the Sustainability Advisory Commission for the City of Urbana. 

Agenda, meeting minutes, and chat log are attached.

Mohamed Attalla, the Executive Director of Facilities and Services, has officially signed the charge letter outlining goals for the 2021 Tree Campus Advisory Committee. These goals, along with the expectations of the committee can be found in the attached pdf.

Congratulations to the following two events for achieving green certification in December 2020!

ISTC'S Sustainability Seminar Series 
ECEC21 (Emerging Contaminants in the Environment Conference) 

Green Event Portal

iSEE hosted our first “Certified Greener Campus Program Workshop” to guide U of I organizations in certifying as “green,” even while unusual conditions add complexity to campus’s daily operations. The online workshop included a program overview, steps to certification, FAQs, and an open discussion about overcoming common barriers to sustainability.

If you were unable to attend Thursday’s workshop, you can still take steps to advocate for sustainable practices in your unit! I invite you to:

• View and download the PowerPoint slides presented during the workshop.
• Watch the workshop recording on YouTube.
• Visit the Greener Campus Portal for more information about Certified Green Events, Offices, RSOs, and Greek chapters.
• Contact a Greener Campus team member at iseegreenoffice@gmail.com.

Check out the 2021 iSEE New Years Resolution Sustainability Guide, full of actions to consider and resources to help! Stay mindful of the environment when setting goals in 2021. 

The following resources were shared at the January 20, 2021 brainstorming meeting. Meeting notes are attached below.

Champaign-Urbana Urbanized Area Map
Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool
Champaign County Climate Resilience Task Force
Champaign County Regional Environmental Framework
Salud America Health Equity Report Card
Resources for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice
Champaign County Board Environment and Land Use Committee
Box Folder - for ongoing updates

iSEE is offering funding to integrate elements of sustainability into an existing course ($1,000 award) or develop a new course with a sustainability focus ($2,000 award) through the 2021 Levenick iSEE Teaching Sustainability Fellowship. Applications are due January 31.

Below is the recording link for the 1-20-21 meeting. Meeting minutes to follow.

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:2b989ffe-dd40-44b8-bba7-ae3543421080#pageNum=1

***Correction from recording*** Example scenario - if in the first year, College of Engineering spends $100 million on utilities and in year 5, they do work to reduce consumption by $1 million, will they get that $1 million of savings in perpetuity or for a limited time? They would get $100 million in allocation, but their utility costs would only be $99 million and they would keep the difference and be able to spend it on other budget items.

All, Not a whole lot to report: The Bike Center Fix It pump is operational and I’ll be meeting this week about marketing to get the word out. I got an email not 12 hours after visiting the new Flagg Hall covered bike parking asking if it was operational, funnily enough. Parking tagged the bike that was locked up out front of the Bike Center. It was probably a donation but doing our due diligence on that.

This week student staff will start and we’ll work through some more bike builds.

The numbers:

Visitors: 6
Sales: $59
Memberships: 1 for $30
Misc: $29

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

The Energy iCAP Team had their first meeting of the Spring semester on January 21st, 2021. The meeting focused on obtaining supporting materials for a recommendation to start the Comprehensive Energy Plan, which will serve as an university-wide guide on energy conservation. A recommendation to model buildings for energy code compliance will likely be ready next month. Future discussions are planned with F&S representatives. A subcommittee of Energy team members will brainstorm concrete actions on energy efficiency in labs and residence halls. The agenda and meeting minutes are attached. 

Please see attached the SSC semesterly report for "Bicycle Registration and RFID Tracking Program" project from fall 2020.