On October 10, UIUC sustainability representatives met and discussed the following:

Attendance: Daphne Hulse, Shreya Mahajan, Thurman Etchison, Dave Guth, Jen Fraterrigo, Sarthak Prasad

Agenda:

1. Weekly calls with Coca-Cola will be changing times to either 12:00pm, 1:00pm, or 2:30pm. Based on the poll Meredith sent, it’s looking like 12:00-12:30pm allows the most members to join.

2. Updated Box folder documents — make sure to check out the Zero Waste Basketball Game Vision + Roadmap!

3. 10-5-22 Discovery Call with the YAH Agency — YAH Agency is helping Coca-Cola put together a comprehensive Don’t Waste Campaign for campus. We talked through some of their questions on the last Wednesday call. If we have any additional context or information we want to provide them, we will need to do so by this Tuesday 10-11-22.

4. Jake has provided us with the updated Don’t Waste logos — the high res versions will be added to Box once we approve.

5. Meeting minutes of past meetings are available in the Box folder.

6. Marty Kaufmann t-shirt/bin update — talked to Coca-Cola about the t-shirts and bins for State Farm Center for November 14. This is already on their radar; they are talking to their ad agency about t-shirts for volunteers.

7. What would we like to put on the agenda for the Wednesday 10-12-22 call?

   1. Our sustainability funds:

      1. T-shirts — who will be funding?

      2. Who is funding the YAH Agency involvement?

   2. Vision and roadmap — need more specific details (who is doing what, and by when?)

      1. Defining Coca-Cola’s role in this event.

      2. Determining details from DIA/Marty.

      3. Pushing for a State Farm Center tour.

8. Jen: Ohio State MyCup Program — are we interested in pursuing something similar?

• Jen: MyCup program — initial thoughts?

  • Dave: OSU had a simple model (to not charge people for using a reusable vessel)

    • Vendors would have a really tough time

    • Nor do we have the Coke Freestyle infrastructure everywhere like OSU (we do have it in the Quad Shop, but not in the food court yet). Every vendor has a different contract with different requirements

    • Nor sure about the free system, given that these vendors make their money on beverages (margins are tight to begin with)

  • Jen: there is the potential to design a program that was more paletable to retailers/vendors.

  • Dave: tracking vendors is also a challenge

    • Restrictions that hurt the bottom line would make it hard to bring in qualified vendors that are interested

  • Thurman: it seems like OSU has not had much success. At this point they are funding free drinks without seeing the results they want to achieve

    • Have to be financially solvent, so a bunch of free drinks may not work for us

    • More inclined to get behind something that allows freshman get reusable bottles (and containers) and having a marketing campaign behind getting them acclimated to that

  • Jen: agree with the idea that OSU has demonstrated the success. No numbers to say much, except for how much money they have invested in

  • Thurman: I think OSU’s idea was to just give it shot. Which is ok, but they aren’t achieving their goals.

  • Jen: alternative reusable bottle program? Student Activities did this in the past. Didn’t do it this year because there was no funds for it. Seen programs where you pay for a cup, which then comes with a huge discount or so many refills. To Dave and Thurman: is it worth the time to look into this, or a non-starter?

  • Thurman: onboard with finding a different approach. Speaking for himself, but thinking a discount for bringing in a reusable could work (could still cover the cost). Surprised OSU didn’t see traffic driven where this program was implemented. But accepts that it is hard to track that.

  • Dave: agrees with Thurman about the discount idea. harder with the union, because there are a bunch of private vendors involved. All the OSU iterations seemed like throwing money at wall to see what stuck