The SSC Weatherization student leader met with the Building Maintenance team at F&S to review the student team reports for the small houses they assessed last fall.  Building Maintenance will develop cost estimates for the identified needs, so the students can prioritize the available funding ($50,000 from F&S).

Staff continued working with the Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE) on the sustainability portal.  The portal will host a database of the iCAP/sustainability projects for campus, with searchable details about the projects, people, funding, and metrics.

Staff met with Inside Illinois to develop an article about campus sustainability.  The article is online at http://news.illinois.edu/ii/12/0301/sustainability.html.

The Alumni Magazine included a story about being a Bronze Level Bicycle Friendly University.

Here are the recommended fix lists from each of the groups.

The Office of Sustainability hosted the first monthly CCNet Sustainability meeting of 2012 on January 19. The meeting had 39 attendees, including faculty, staff, students, local government employees, and members of the community. There was a presentation and discussion led by SEDAC about the organization’s work and national energy trends.  CCNet Meetings will continue throughout 2012, taking place at noon on the third Thursday of each month, at the Natural Resources Building, room 101.

Sustainability employees from campus, Urbana, Champaign and the Regional Planning Commission (RPC) continue to collaborate. In January, we discussed each agency’s respective greenhouse gas inventories. It was decided that Champaign and Urbana will include any University emissions which fall within their respective jurisdictional boundaries in their city-wide reports. For the purposes of local reporting, the University will be considered a separate entity that overlays both cities, similar to any other business entity, rather than a distinct jurisdiction. It was also decided that a separate meeting will be necessary to specifically address transportation-related emissions and how each entity is tracking and reporting on these.

The YMCA/YWCA on Wright Street requested a meeting to discuss their sustainability efforts and how the University may be able to assist. They are working on building improvements and changes to their parking and outdoor space. We gave them suggestions of people they may want to contact for input and advice.

Sustainability staff attended an Illinois Green Business Association (IGBA) networking event and talked with IGBA board members about potential future collaborations.

The City of Champaign Recycling Coordinator requested information about the impacts of plastic and paper bags on campus facilities and the campus waste stream. She also requested letters of support for a bag ban from student environmental groups.

Sustainability staff attend monthly conference calls/webinars of the Governor’s Green Universities and Colleges subcommittee.  In January, there was a presentation at ISTC about weatherization of campus buildings, and the disconnect between LEED certification and weatherization practices.

Funding was approved for several pavement improvements on campus streets.  These improvements will reduce gas consumption and corresponding emissions for vehicle traffic; restripe the bike lanes on a portion of Gregory Drive; extend the bike lanes on Fourth Street south to Kirby Avenue; add pedestrian countdown traffic signals at two signalized intersections; implement traffic calming measures, such as curb bump outs for increased pedestrian safety in key locations; and improve one block of the Illinois Marathon route on First Street, between Peabody Drive and Kirby Avenue.

Staff are participating in weekly conference calls with Zipcar to encourage the use of car sharing and active transportation on campus. A Zipcar winter welcome special offer was shared in the OS newsletter and through the OS twitter account.

The firm that was hired last fall to complete the Compost Feasibility Study, Foth, submitted a draft of their study to the University in early January for comments.  Immediately following, F&S applied for $250,000 from the F-SCRAP Grant from DCEO, for equipment and site improvements for the Large-Scale Food Waste Composting Facility.  In order to apply for the grant, the University was required to commit to funding the remaining portion of the facility’s proposed budget, and an emergency phone meeting was called by the Student Sustainability Committee to assign funding toward this. The committee voted in favor and granted $250,000 toward the project.  A draft plan for the compost facility was also developed and distributed to key stakeholders in mid-January for feedback. 

Sustainability staff met with Corporate Relations to discuss the potential for developing a database of sustainability research at Illinois.  Corporate Relations already has a database for water related research that is very detailed.  Future meetings are planned to move forward with this project.

Office of Sustainability Staff have posted the Fall 2011 Progress report to its website, along with the greenhouse gas inventories under the ‘Illinois Climate Action Plan’ section.

From: Thomas Ferrarell [mailto:tjferrarell@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 10:27 PM
To: Allen, Amy E; Beverage, McKenzie; Johnston, Morgan B
Subject: Re: Weatherization

I met with Dean, and I e-mailed all the groups, I'll send Julie a copy. I'll need to stop by McKenzie's office early this week to get their documents back so they can begin working on their lists. I'll also touch base with the additional buildings tomorrow morning before giving the teams their next assignments.

Dean gave me a new timeline. He would like the recommendation lists by February 1st. He'll give the lists to people that will find the money values for the line items. He estimates that will take roughly 2 weeks. Once that is done, we will meet with all the team leaders and have a conversation about how to best use the $50,000. We were going to set that meeting somewhere in the ball park of February 20th. So right around then is when we'll be done.

-Thomas Ferrarell

On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Amy Allen <allen16@illinois.edu> wrote:

Hey Tom,
       Were you able to get in touch w the teams about doing more buildings & presentations to Dean? Just an FYI, SECS' temporary weatherization group leader is Julie Fry(<fry6@illinois.edu>).
Best,
Amy