Morning, all.

Courtesy of Max-R (big name in recycling bins), we have a new, functional, clean, state-of-the-art rubbish/recycling station in the break room (photo attached). It will still be serviced by our same cleaning staff. As free time allows, I’ll update the signage. The cardboard bin is next to the pretty bin. Note the SEDAC logo and the “this is made from 1501 recycled milk jugs” image.

Thanx to Lucas, Stevie, Carrie, Aaron and others for logistical and physical support in getting it sited.

Cheers,
Marcus

From: Kenfield, Micah Charles
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 9:00 AM
Subject: SSC Spotlight in the Daily Illini

Good morning, team!

Some of you may have already seen this, but the Daily Illini gave some great coverage to the Coffee Ground Repurposing Project in today’s paper:

http://www.dailyillini.com/news/article_bd4b0c04-4381-11e4-93bc-0017a43b2370.html

Great job to all involved in the project, and a special thanks to Dr. Wander for her interview in the article.

All My Best,

Micah Kenfield

Program Advisor, Student Sustainability Committee

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

285 Illini Union, MC-384

Champaign-Urbana Area Bicycle Map
Distribution Locations on the Illinois Campus

University Locations

Campus Parking:
Public Safety Building, MC-241
1110 Springfield Ave., Suite 201
Urbana, IL 61801

Campus Police:
Safety Day
September 11, 2008

Campus Recreation
Campus Recreation Center East
Activities Recreation Center

McKinley Health Center
1109 S. Lincoln Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801

Illini Union Bookstore
809 S. Wright Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Undergraduate Library
1402 West Gregory
Urbana, IL 61801

Illini Union
1401 West Greet Street
Urbana, IL 61801

International Student and Scholar Services
400 Student Services Building
610 E. John
Champaign, IL 

Turner Student Services
Front Desk or Third Floor (Dean of Students)
610 East John
Champaign, IL 61801

Alice Campbell Alumni Center
601 South Lincoln Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801

University Housing

Allen Hall front desk
1005 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801

Busey/Evans Hall front desk
111 W. Nevada Street
Urbana, IL 61801

Townsend Hall front desk
918 West Illinois St.
Urbana, IL 61801

Wardell Hall front desk
1012 West Illinois St.
Urbana, IL 61801

Trelease Hall front desk
901 College Ct.
Urbana, IL 61801

Oblesby Hall front desk
1005 College Ct.
Urbana, IL 61801

Babcock-Carr Hall front desk
1001 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801

Blaisdell-Sunders Hall front desk
901 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801

Weston Hall front desk
204 E. Peabody Drive
Champaign, IL 61820

Taft-Van Doren Hall front desk
1213 South Fourth Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Barton and Lundgren Halls front desk
1205 South Fourth Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Forbes Hall front desk
101 East Gregory Drive
Champaign, IL 61820

Garner Hall front desk
201 East Gregory Drive
Champaign, IL 61820

Hopkins Hal front desk
103 East Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801

Orchard Downs front desk (Family and Graduate Housing)
1841 Orchard Place
Urbana, IL 61801

Sherman Hall front desk
909 South Fifth Street
Champaign, Il 61820

Daniels Hall front desk
1010 West Green Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Private Certified Housing

Armory House
1010 South Second
Champaign, IL 61820

Bromley Hall
910 South Third
Champaign, IL 61820

Europa House
802 West Oregon
Urbana, IL 61820

Illini Tower
409 East Chalmers
Champaign, IL 61820

Newman Center
604 East Armory Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820

Presby Hall
405 East John
Champaign, IL 61820

Cultural Houses

Asian American Cultural Center
1210 West Nevada Street
Urbana, IL 61801

Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center
708 South Mathews
Urbana, IL 61801

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

Attached here are the agenda and other relevant materials for the September 25, 2014 meeting of the iCAP Working Group.

This letter is in response to the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Working Group (iWG) recommendation #EG001, which Facilities & Services (F&S) received on August 28.  F&S agrees that the campus should investigate the feasibility of entering into a Wind Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to increase the use of renewable energy for campus. 

Regarding the EG001 general statements about campus energy use, data points, and assessments of anticipated financial impacts, F&S will need more time to compile a useful response.  Regarding the three specific EG001 recommendations, I have consulted with Al Stratman, Kent Reifsteck, and Mike Larson to provide the responses below. 

1. Recommendation: “The campus should undertake a Power Purchase Agreement for wind energy. Based on currently available information, we recommend that the amount be at least 119 million kWh per year (25% of our total electrical usage), but we should aim to purchase as much as we possibly can, given any technical, financial, and contractual constraints.”

From this recommendation, we understand that the iWG recommends entering into a Wind PPA for at least 25% of the FY15 electrical demand.  However, the campus cannot make an informed decision about whether or not to undertake a PPA until the financial impact is fully understood.  A key component of the financial impact is the fully burdened cost of the purchased wind power, which will not be known until after the successful completion of the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.  Therefore, F&S does support pursuing a PPA so the feasibility can be evaluated, but we do not support making a final decision to undertake a PPA until completely evaluating the financial implications.

1. Recommendation: “The effort to secure a PPA should be pursued as quickly as possible. The campus should inform PEI that this is a top priority, and that the review of RFI submittals and the issuance of the RFP should be expedited by all necessary means.”

During this summer, F&S worked with PEI to define a schedule for issuing a Request for Information (RFI) and a subsequent Request for Proposals (RFP).  This schedule shows a completion date of April 2015, so that the PPA could commence with delivery of power on July 1, 2015, at the start of FY16.  We have informed PEI that this is a top priority, along with safety and reliability of the overall campus energy system.

1. Recommendation: “The iCAP Working Group should be kept informed and advised during the process of pursuing the RFI, RFP, and PPA, and given the opportunity to provide recommendations before key decisions are made about the PPA, to ensure that technical and financial considerations are appropriately balanced with our campus sustainability objectives.”

F&S values the advice and input from sustainability advocates on campus.  Therefore, we suggest developing a set of interim checkpoints for keeping the iWG informed as the process unfolds.

To meet our Climate Commitment and achieve carbon neutrality, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.  I look forward to working with the iWG and the SWATeams as this recommendation is pursued.

Sincerely,

Morgan B. Johnston

Associate Director of Sustainability, F&S

From: Miller, Kristina Ruth
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 8:43 AM
To: Lage, Stephanie M
Cc: Strater, Darren; Alexander, Franklin S
Subject: RE: Air Travel dollars

Hi Stephanie,

Darren Strater asked me to provide you with the information you requested. 

For FY14 Airfare for Chart 1 (UIUC) totaled $14,014,590.  This included extra charges for baggage fees, changed ticket fees and booking charges. 

With JUST the price of the Airfare ticket, the total for Chart 1 (UIUS) totaled $13,671,434.

If you need a formal breakdown, please let me know.

Kristina R. Miller

Analytics and Operations Support Coordinator

University of Illinois

OBFS University Payables

Morgan, here’s the direct link to the resource I mentioned to you on the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) web site. The GLRPPR site is pretty extensive, with many “sector resources,” so I’ll save you the trouble of navigating through them.

P2 Measurement & Calculators Sector Resource: http://www.glrppr.org/contacts/gltopichub.cfm?sectorid=143. 

I don’t know if you were specifically interested in water-related calculators, or if you were using that as a hypothetical example. In any event, there are a few water-related calculators within the list at the above URL. US EPA’s WaterSense program provides a calculator for residential savings, if you replace existing fixtures with WaterSense labelled items. Seehttp://www.epa.gov/watersense/our_water/start_saving.html#tabs-3. This could be a resource to provide students or staff who ask you about such calculators, but be mindful (as you should with any “canned” calculator) of the assumptions made regarding things like utility costs, average number of gallons of water used per year, etc. (http://www.epa.gov/watersense/our_water/how_works.html#assumptions). This particular tool wouldn’t be useful for campus buildings; the Alliance for Water Efficiency provides some guidelines for calculations on school and university campuses:http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/Schools_and_Universities.aspx. 

Dan Marsch mentioned resources for pre-rinse spray nozzles, which could be of interest in dining halls. Probably the best resource on best practices in this arena is the Food Service Technology Center (http://fishnick.com/). Their site includes a spray valve water cost calculator (http://fishnick.com/savewater/tools/watercalculator/) and a water leak cost calculator (http://fishnick.com/savewater/tools/leakcalculator/).

Kishore mentioned the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Their site is at http://www.aceee.org/. He also mentioned EERE, the US DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Their site is athttp://energy.gov/eere/office-energy-efficiency-renewable-energy.

Hope this helps,

Joy

Joy Scrogum

Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist

Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC; www.istc.illinois.edu) 

Co-coordinator, Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI; www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu)

Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR; www.glrppr.org)

ISTC is a Division of the Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

217-333-8948; 1 Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, IL 61820; MC-676

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pursuing development of a large-scale food waste composting facility on the University’s property, in order to compost food waste from University dining halls.  This interest is precipitated by the commitment made by the University in the 2010 Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP): “The University will commit to… a large‐scale food composting project by 2012.” The new facility will initially receive and process all acceptable pre- and post-consumer food waste from six dining halls on campus, as well as supplementary landscape waste as necessary carbon bulking material from Campus Grounds. In the future, if needed, the system may accept additional landscape waste from the city of Champaign as well as livestock bedding and other animal-related organic waste from the University’s Agricultural and Animal Sciences Departments. The finished product will provide rich compost material to agricultural projects on campus such as the Sustainable Student Farm, as well as to campus grounds and athletic fields.

Background

The University of Illinois is dedicated to composting across the board.  There are three main academic campuses at Urbana, Springfield, and Chicago and two medical campuses at Peoria and Rockford.  We are in communication with all of these sites about the future of composting at the University.  This is an exciting opportunity for the sustainability contacts to work together and support each other in a major sustainability initiative.  Additionally, the University Extension office has a long history of supporting sustainability and has numerous resources for composting operations that we can call upon as the project progresses. 

In 2008, the Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging to become carbon neutral by the year 2050.  As part of this commitment, the University published “Illinois: A Climate Action Plan (iCAP)” in May 2010, describing several projects related to various aspects of campus sustainability.  This document is available online at http://sustainability.illinois.edu/iCAP.html.  

The Procurement and Waste aspects of campus sustainability are highlighted on page five of the iCAP.  It states “The University will commit to a Zero Waste campus policy by 2012, a large-scale food composting project by 2012, and target an increase in the University’s waste diversion rate to 75 percent by 2020.”  The specific project is listed on page 34 item 4 under Agricultural targets, as “Incorporate a large-scale food composting project by 2012.” 

The composting project also has significant support from campus leadership represented by Associate Chancellor Pradeep Khanna, Facilities & Services as represented by Tracy Osby the Waste Management Coordinator and Jack Dempsey the Executive Director, and the students as represented by the Student Sustainability Committee.  The Office of Sustainability works closely with Facilities and Services to assist with the various projects in the Climate Action Plan, and will assist with project implementation and promotional information.

Currently, approximately 1411 tons of food-waste is collected annually from the five major Dining Halls on campus.  Unfortunately, all of this waste is sent to the Clinton Landfill.  There was a small pilot composting project which diverted about five percent of this waste during the short pilot test phase, but it has not been in operation for the last year.  The proposed Large-Scale Food Waste Composting Facility will divert 100 percent of this food-waste and utilize Grounds department landscape waste to generate approximately 2,822 tons of high-quality compost annually.  The compost material will be used solely on University land, including the campus grounds, athletic fields, and the Sustainable Student Farm project.  Future expansion of composting operations could incorporate the animal waste at the Beef and Sheep Facility, which is directly south of the Compost Facility.   At that time, the finished product may be used on certain crop sciences lands.