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potential regional CAP projects

Posted by Morgan White on February 13, 2014

  • Energy
    • Currently, we are collaborating with the cities to encourage building managers to sign up for the U-C Energy Star Challenge to encourage energy conservation.  UI students volunteer to assist the building managers with data entry into the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and SEDAC provides technical support to the program.
    • The City of Champaign includes data about the CO2-e emissions from Abbott Power Plant in their sustainability plan.
    • We all have renewable energy interests, so there may be a potential to collaborate to encourage the renewable energy adoption around this county.
  • Land & Space
    • I am not sure if there is a project/collaboration already underway with this topic, except through UI Extension’s outreach to the 102 counties.
    • This is an area where we could potentially collaborate to facilitate in-fill development and additional greenspace.
  • Procurement & Waste
    • The UI Waste Transfer Station was built after the Community Recycling Center was closed a few decades ago.  Now, however, both cities have recycling programs in place with more acceptable recyclable content that we accept on campus.  Perhaps the UI could increase the types of materials that we recycle through a collaboration with the cities. 
    • Also, the City of Urbana’s Landscape Recycling Center is piloting food composting, and we could potentially work together to compost materials from campus that are not recyclable.
  • Transportation
    • Currently, we are collaborating on transportation planning through CUUATS.  This works very well and should continue to be supported.
    • To encourage alternative fuel vehicles, the UI is installing Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, and the cities may be interested in collaborating on a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) filling station.  If there were a CNG filling station available in this area, the UI Fleet could be converted to using CNG rather than traditional gasoline.
  • Water
    • Currently, we are collaborating on stormwater management through the MS4 program.  This includes the Green Infrastructure conference and the Boneyard Community Clean-up Day.
  • Education/Outreach/Promoting
    • Perhaps there could be a promotional effort to educate community members about general sustainability practices and encourage people to choose Champaign-Urbana as their permanent home.

Urbana is updating their existing Climate Action Plan, and Champaign has recently completed their Sustainability Plan.  With the proposed update efforts for the Illinois Climate Action Plan, this is good timing to start this discussion.