The EGEN SWATeam held another bi-weekly meeting. Topics covered include:

• Ximing Cai's [in attendance] vision for iSEE and SWATeams
• Developing a recommendation to expand UIUC solar farm.
• Developing a recommendation for another clean energy PPA
• Cost savings for geothermal systems and opportunities for implementation at solar farm and new building sites

Meeting Minutes 3/29

During this meeting, the PWR SWAT Team coordinated with Marya Ryan, the new Zero Waste Coordinator. We discussed previous campus efforts for multiple different projects like composting and recycling as well as introduced ourselves to one another. 

The SWAT Team also was updated on progress with reviewing the Paper Policy Draft comments and will finish this review by next meeting. 

Furthermore, a discussion of composting efforts on campus was discussed and an effort to create a comprehensive map of waste pickup routes will be created. 

Next meeting is TBD.

The EGEN SWATeam held another bi-weekly meeting. Topics covered include:

• Performing preliminary assessment for clean energy PPA
• Fact sheet using solar farm as basis to estimate land needs and costs of additional solar farm to meet iCAP goal
• Update on biomass boiler at energy farm
• Identifying opportunities to purseu implementation of ground source heat pump (GSHP) technology on campus.

see file

The iCAP Working Group (iWG) met on Dec 6, 2016. They supported the Green Labs Coordinator recommendation. The Assessment was completed with comments from all the iWG members on March 27, 2017. The iWG's official comment for this recommendation was:

"The iCAP Working Group strongly supports the creation of a formal and campus-wide Green Labs program, led by a full-time coordinator and assisted by a team of student interns and a faculty advisory committee.  Many of our peer institutions have successfully implemented such programs.  Such a program is almost certain to lead to significant cost savings: for example, if the program led to the decommissioning of just 1% of our campus's 1700 fume hoods, the recurring energy savings would pay for a full-time position.  However, we anticipate that a much larger fraction (perhaps 10-20%) of hoods could be decommissioned, and there would be additional cost savings from behavior changes, freezer and refrigerator management, and other improvements.  The fiscal benefit to the campus as a whole, in addition to the sustainability benefit, is clear.  However, given current uncertainties about budgets and even budget models, it is not obvious which unit(s) stand to realize the cost savings over the long term.  We therefore suggest that this position be supported centrally, by the Office of the Provost, as a cross-cutting cost-saving strategy.  In terms of organizational placement, we suggest that the OVCR is the natural home for this program, because this office already oversees many programs related to the responsible conduct of research, including safety, compliance, and animal care.  As suggested by the SWATeam, this program could also receive communications/marketing support from iSEE staff."

See attached the iWG assessment complete with official comments from all the iWG members.

See SWATeam recommendation ECONS004 Green Labs Coordinator.

At the PWR SWAT Team meeting on March 15th, the team debated over the message in the new Ethics Compliance Message concerning recycling standards and rules. The team decided that two videos should be created, one with base instructions for recycling, the other for explaining the commonly misunderstood paper policy. The team will look more into the paper policy draft and suggest a new paper policy for the campus.