Good afternoon,

Yesterday afternoon, the question of how much carbon dioxide does an Enviropure unit produce was asked.  I’ve copied the information below from their website:

“According to the EPA and USCC, carbon dioxide emissions generated from the aerobic decomposition of food waste by systems such as the EnviroPure systems are considered to be “biogenic”. This means that our EnviroPure Systems and the carbon it returns to the environment are part of the natural carbon cycle and so it does not contribute to greenhouse gases and global warming.”

Please let me know if anyone has any further questions about the Enviropure units.  Also, please forward this information to other members of the swat team I may be missing.

Thank you,

Carol

Carol H. Strohbeck

Assistant Director of Dining Services, Equipment & Facilities

Hello Big10 Unplugged! 

I believe I have everyone on/off the list as requested but we have have any updates or other schools to invite, please let me know. 

I'm hoping to schedule a phone conference after the AASHE conference for a quick check in on this year's Big10 Unplugged challenge. Please use this link: http://www.when2meet.com/?2122186-LoyHA to indicate your availability. Please convert your time to Central Standard Time. 

You do not need to create an account. Just type your first name and click sign in. The click and drag to highlight times you are available. Hopefully scheduling this far in advance will give us at least a 30 minute block of time when everyone is available. Be sure to convert your time to Central Standard Time. 

Sign up for CCN before the deadline on November 7th. http://www.competetoreduce.org/  You'll need to be signed up for CCN in order to participate in Big10 Unplugged. 

Attached is our logo. Feel free to use in your communications and promotions. 

Thanks and reach out to me at anytime with questions, 

Stacey

Hello,

My name is Rachel Jacoby. I am the Philanthropy Chair for ActGreen, the first green business organization at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign. We are interested in co-sponsoring this event by promoting it on our social media sites, providing volunteers, and helping to organize it. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance.

Best,

Rachel Jacoby

Hello,

Thank you so much for taking out time from your busy schedules to attend the Monthly Certified Green Office Program Meeting last week. I am reaching out to you to let you know that the presentation is available online under Certified Green Office Resources and can be accessed using this link: http://sustainability.illinois.edu/CertifiedGreenOfficeEnroll.html. 

Our next meeting will be Sept. 25, 10-11am in Room 210, Illini Union and you can RSVP for the meeting here. Please spread the word about the program with your peers and encourage them to enroll for the program. 

One of the program participants pointed out to me that the application (excel file) didn't affectively calculate the number of points because the cells weren't referred right in my formula. I am sorry for inconvenience, it has been fixed now and you use the attached application form instead. It is updated on our website as well. Please use the new file instead of the previous one, the only thing we changed is the formula in Cell B61. 

In other news, the iSEE Congress registration deadline is Sept. 5, 2014 and you can register here. And iSEE is looking for self nominations for the Sustainability Working Advisory Teams Consultations Groups to help with rewriting the Illinois Climate Action Plan and you can read more about the opportunity here. Feel free to follow us on Twitter (@sustainILLINOIS) and facebook (https://www.facebook.com/iSEEatUofI) to stay updated about our events and programs. Feel free to tweet at us to share more information about your sustainability orientated events! 

Thank you so much for committing to making the campus community greener. I am really excited to work with all of you in the months to come. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. 

Regards,

Nishant Makhijani

iSEE leaders provided an introduction to the SSLC

Six Objectives: Facilitate communication, facilitate collaboration, provide a forum for student leaders to voice their opinions to iSEE and thereby to the campus administration, help identify students who can serve on iSEE working groups or advisory groups, help identify potential interns, encourage more awareness about sustainability among student body

Unofficial objective: Create political will/pressure to implement sustainability initiatives

Topics covered:

• 2010 iCAP progress toward 2015 objectives
• iSEE Congress
• Zero Waste Game Day
• SSLC organizational structure

Marques,

I discussed the project with Carl Wegel. I regret to inform you that F&S will not be able to continue it at this time.

Please let me know what actions we would need to take if any to close out this account.

Best,

Eliana

Al Stratman, Carl Wegel, Ryan Welch, and Morgan Johnston met to discuss the requirements for applying for Tree Campus USA recognition.  Al directed Morgan and Ryan to pursue the application for this fall.  Morgan will take the lead, with Ryan handling a lot of the needed writing effort.

There are five requirements to get recognized as a Tree Campus USA:

1. Establish a “Campus Tree Advisory Committee”
   
   1. Membership must include a student, a Grounds representative, a faculty member, and a community member.
   2. We are hopeful that the Arboretum would organize this committee, chair it, staff it, and we would just need to attend and participate.
   3. The required responsibilities are unclear in the Tree Campus program, but we would not need to give them any authority over us.
2. Campus Tree Care Plan
   
   1. must include
      
      1. Clearly stated purpose.
      2. Responsible authority/department - who enforces the Campus Tree Care Plan. – F&S
      3. Establishment of a Campus Tree Advisory Committee, terms of the representatives, and role committee plays. – see above
      4. Campus tree care policies for planting, landscaping, maintenance and removal including establishing and updating a list of recommended and prohibited species; managing for catastrophic events. – we would need to document the maintenance and removal policies
      5. Protection and Preservation policies and procedures - include process for implementing tree protection plan including step-by-step process that every project must follow including construction and trenching. – in the standards
      6. Goals and Targets - develop at least one goal and target for your Campus Tree Plan. These could include (but are not limited to) tree canopy target, development of a link between the Campus Tree Plan and other green initiatives on campus or in the community; completion of a campus-wide tree inventory, etc. Include how the goal will be measured. – the goal could be to update and maintain the tree inventory, currently at about 75% for tree locations
      7. Tree damage assessment - enforcement, penalties, and appeals. – we would need to complete and document this policy
      8. Prohibited practices. – in the standards
      9. Definitions of terminology related to campus trees.
      10. Communication strategy - how the campus tree care plan will be communicated to the college community and contractors to heighten awareness about policies and procedures as well as the goals of the institution. – in collaboration with Arboretum, CRC, and possibly iSEE
   2. F&S would take the lead on developing this plan.  The advisory committee could be the primary reviewers.  Morgan can help facilitate this.
3. Campus Tree Program with Dedicated Annual Expenditures
   
   1. Grounds has a dedicated budget for trees.  Ryan noted that right now we are at about $200K per year including replacements, 2 tree surgeons and 2 grounds workers
   2. Ryan would need to develop a regular process for summarizing this data to record as evidence of the funding.
   3. We could expand this effort to collect financial information from other units that handle trees on campus, such as the Arboretum
4. Arbor Day Observance
   
   1. The Arboretum is the natural lead for an Arbor Day Observance event each year.  They have indicated interest in helping with this program. 
   2. We would definitely be involved, but we would prefer they take the lead for developing and organizing the event.
   3. Certain items would need to be tracked: activity program, news coverage, pictures, and I recommend tracking participation rates.
5. Service Learning Project
   
   1. “This should provide an opportunity to engage the student population with projects related to trees and can be part of a campus of community initiative.”
   2. We agree that a student project could be to locate the campus trees and enter basic information (size?).
   3. The project must be completed within the course of the year the application is submitted.
   4. The Arboretum could help coordinate this effort.  We could get a professor to do it in a class.  Morgan can assist with the coordination of this project.

The application is due in December for the year completed, so we would need to complete this effort this fall in order to qualify for next year.

Many thanks to Jeevaka Somaratna for his help as the teaching assistant for the first year of the CEE 398 Project Based Learning course!  The new TAs for Fall 2014 are Paul Littleton and Alek Heilstedt.