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The Illini Union has demolished its old cooling towers for HVAC in the past 15 years, and recently demolished the old evaporator cooling system for the refrigeration chilling water in 2017. Almost all of our HVAC is now on DDC, with the exception of AHU’s 1, 2, & 3 in the South Building attic, and AHU-21 in the North Building NW subbasement.
The ALUFS SWATeam submitted a recommendation to the iWG stating, "A committee of ACES faculty, farm personnel, and iSEE members will develop a comprehensive and cooperative management plan for all non-research agricultural land on the UIUC South farms that promotes sustainable practices and implements current best management practices. The plan should account for crop rotations, soil management, nutrient application, and pest management. This strategy must consider the needs and wishes of the departments that rely on the productivity of this land for financial return. The plan should offer detailed recommendations, costs of implementation, and estimated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from adopted practices. The committee should include faculty with expertise in biogeochemistry as well as staff responsible for agricultural production."
See attached the SWATeam recommendation ALUFS004 South Farm Management Plan complete with comments from all the ALUFS SWATeam members.
Frank Holcomb is working on investigating geothermal options for campus.
The Transportation SWATeam had their first meeting of the semester. They discussed their formal recommendation for a new mode share study and opportunities for expansion of Green Fleet certification to new campus fleets.
Free To Ride, a documentary produced by The Ohio State University's Kirwan Institute, highlights the relentless spirit of community leaders from across Dayton, Ohio who overcame a suburban contingent fearfully opposed to the expansion of public transit along a commercial corridor, and the system of checks and balances that allowed justice and reason to prevail.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/95444875
This event is free and open to the public. Join us on March 7th at 4pm in room 112 at the Transportation Building.
Event Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1554444197965701/
A presentation on Climate Leadership Commitments and the iCAP by Morgan White, presented on October 11, 2017.
Meeting topics included potential for the team to move forward with a water audit of campus buildings, ways that nitrogen runoff could be monitored, and incentives the Parking Department would have in following through with adding green infrastructure to parking projects.
see file
The CEE 398 Project Based Learning and the Sustainability Minor's ENVS 492 Capstone students completed their nine fall 2017 reports.
There were five projects completed for capstone partners:
There were four other projects completed by CEE students:
The formal site selection committee was formed today to finalize a location for the potential second solar farm.
F&S Interim Executive Director Helen Coleman charged the Solar Farm 2.0 Ad Hoc Advisory Committee today to assist with an evaluation of the opportunity by soliciting proposals for a second solar farm. See attached letter.
The 2015 iCAP chapter 8, objective 2 is, "By the end of FY17, develop an administrative mechanism to enable campus units to voluntarily purchase carbon offsets." During FY17, iSEE is executing a campuswide purchase of offsets. A starting inventory of carbon offsets will be put into a Virtual Storeroom, for internal purchases by campus units. Through this website, units can directly engage in emission reductions, with the benefit of the initial bulk purchase.
The Carbon Credit sales funding has been approved by Director of iSEE Evan DeLucia and Interim Executive Director of F&S Helen Coleman for buying 10,000 additional carbon offsets, to provide the initial inventory for a new Virtual Storeroom for carbon offsets.
Background
If your department is interested in reducing your carbon footprint from air travel (or other things), you can go online to the Virtual Storeroom and purchase (using a CFOP) offsets from iSEE. iSEE will collect the funds from these sales to replenish the Carbon Offset storeroom inventory when it gets low.
Some campus units (or individual faculty or staff) may wish to voluntarily offset their carbon emissions, for example, from air travel to scholarly meetings. iSEE could work with the Office of Business and Financial Services (OBFS) to develop an administrative mechanism that would allow such units to “buy in” to periodic campuswide purchases of verified offsets.
By the end of FY 17, iSEE helps develop the virtual storeroom which stocks the carbon offsets instead of tangible goods. The carbon offsets will be stored in a virtual storeroom, where units can buy offsets to reduce their carbon emissions for any reason. For example, you can buy them to reduce the carbon emissions of steam, electricity, even university cars, and air travel, which is the main carbon emission source that needs offsets rather than reduction, according to the iCAP. The money what we spend in the virtual storeroom will be collected in a fund that will be used for the purchase of more carbon offsets, when the inventory is low.
The PWR SWATeam discussed the history and future opportunities and mechanisms for battery recycling on campus. They also talked about updates in the rearrangement of outdoor and indoor bins.
The Transportation SWATeam discussed the opportunities, challenges, and feasibility of campus fleet car-sharing to reduce emissions from the campus fleet. They also discussed air travel offsets
The iCAP Working Group (iWG) met on October 27th, 2017, to discuss and start the assessment of the SWATeam recommendation EGen007 Solar Farm 2.0. The iWG's final recommendation was:
"The iWG agrees that this is the most cost-effective method for meeting the iCAP objective of 25,000 MWh/year of on-campus solar generation by FY25. To meet that goal, the Solar Farm 2.0 project needs to begin soon, under F&S direction."
See attached the iWG assessment complete with official comments from all the iWG members.
Evan De Lucia and Helen Coleman approved $70,000 of funding from the Carbon Credit Sales Fund for Campus Tree Inventory.
The emails of approval are attached below.
See the attached files for detailed data on total purchased copy paper from OfficeMax in reams and dollar amount from FY08 to FY17.
Chancellor Jones approved moving forward with soliciting proposals for Solar Farm 2.0, at the Sustainability Council meeting yesterday. F&S will now start working on an RFP process to consider building another 50 acres of solar PVs on south farms.
