Hi Brodie,

I recommend talking with Brent Lewis, the University Landscape Architect (copied here).  Brent, I’m not sure what the discussions have been with the Hartley Garden area at the Arboretum, so feel free to bring us up to speed.

Brodie, I also recommend you come to the Arbor Day Celebration on Friday on the main quad at noon, near Davenport Hall.  We will be planting an Arbor Day tree, and you can talk with both Brent and the Superintendent of Grounds, Ryan Welch.  I’ll be there too.  😊

Thanks,

Morgan

-------------------------------

Morgan,

Thanks for getting back to me - I'll plan to stop by the quad on Friday for a chat with you, Brent, and Ryan.

Thanks,

BRODIE DUNN

Greetings Carbon Offsets Workshop Attendees, and those looking to stay engaged with us!,

Thank you so much for your participation at our workshop on Tuesday April 18th 3-4pm EST, and thank you as well to those who couldn’t attend but are looking to follow-up on the information we shared. We are grateful for the variety of perspectives represented in the meeting space, and the questions and comments we were able to address in the time we had. Moving forward, we’re looking to get your feedback on if there is a collective appetite for diving further into this topic, and what resources are still needed. 

Please feel free again to email Meredith directly with your questions and to get involved directly with our Carbon Offsets Network, C2P2 Initiative, and advisory council....

For those of you looking to gain support with your climate action and resilience work in the southeast...

Please visit this link to share your thoughts and feedback on this workshop by Friday April 28th. Please see links to resources included in the survey.

View Meredith Leigh’s presentation linked here. 

View our recorded zoom meeting video here. 

See below our Q&A of questions and comments institutions and attendees had:

Q&A with Meredith Leigh:

Sandra Van Travis, Morehouse College’s Environmental Health and Safety Officer asks:

Please send information on how to calculate offsets using trees.

Campuses have hired arborists to determine sample areas and measure trees. These measurements require tree height, diameter at breast height, and species identification. Arborists are positioned to do this work. 

If hiring an arborist is not possible, new remote sensing technology providers offer phone apps that can be used by students or faculty to calculate tree data and categorize by species. One company in particular is interested in partnering with HEIs. If you are interested in connecting with this company, email Meredith. 

Christina Kwauk Asks:

I am curious if any of the members of the working group are familiar with carbon offsets that go toward non-mitigation activities but rather to climate adaptation activities that may benefit climate resilience outcomes of environmental justice communities (i.e. instead of carbon removed, what about respiratory illnesses averted/reduced?). This may be totally out of scope for carbon offsets and this workshop, but I wanted to join to listen for these connections today. 

This is a great question and a badly needed type of offset! Right now these kinds of values are considered “co-benefits” of carbon offsets, and people don’t put a dollar value on them like they do on MTCDE reductions, but offset projects are more attractive to buyers when they list these kinds of co-benefits. Campus participation in the Offset Network is a great way to develop projects uniquely suited to your campus, especially when your goals are to serve co-benefits and you have less pressure to just produce quantifiable offsets. An example of this is Clarkson ISE’s recently avoided forest conversion project through the Offset Network. Their main goals were to create student involvement in forest inventory and carbon project development, and to protect a piece of land and the endangered species of turtle that lives on it. The offsets generated from the project are small, and will count toward Clarkson’s Scope 3 emissions, but the co-benefits were what really made the project worthwhile for them. 

Dr. Maria Boccalandro asks:

If you are in a community college setting where you work with tax payer’s money how do you justify buying these credits? I think narrative matters... are there any best practices for community colleges you can share?

A great question, and one that Second Nature is still working on as we diversify the institutions we support. I think the key to this is transparency- communicating to stakeholders both the intentions of the offset purchase and its impact. To this end, it would be advisable to make space for community input when the school develops its offsets strategy. This way taxpayers can provide feedback on whether they see value in the college purchasing offsets as a way of becoming climate neutral, and if so, what types of projects would feel valuable to them. Furthermore I think engagement in the Offset Network, where faculty and students can create local projects with high co-benefits would be a good fit for community colleges. The projects can be designed for community involvement and high community co-benefits so that the expense of engaging is co-owned and the positive impacts are felt beyond campus. 

Thank you all again, and we look forward to reviewing your feedback!,

Blythe Coleman-Mumford (she/her/hers)

-----------------------------------

Hi Morgan, Madhu, and Elizabeth –

Given that we have been discussing offsets and Second Nature’s role, I thought you might find the slides linked below (Meredith Leigh’s presentation, highlighted) of interest. They provide an overview of the topic of offsets and several examples of what various HEIs are doing in this space.

Notably, slides 10-11 indicate that C sequestered in trees can be removed from total campus emissions as a “sink” in SIMAP. As you know, sinks are not the same as offsets because they do not require additionality. We know C sequestration for Trelease Woods and have the data to determine C sequestered by campus trees. So I think we should consider listing them as sinks. We could also consider other campus lands where land use/land cover might support C sequestration (cover cropping?).

Based on the public SIMAP report (here), we have reported 0 sinks/non-additional sequestration in the past. When will we complete the next SIMAP report?

Thanks,

Jen

--------------------------------------

Thanks for sharing this Jen. This is helpful to have. I will look over the slides. Can you also send me the write up by Warren Lavey.

We should plan on discussing this at our next CS team meeting unless there is urgency to discuss it sooner

Best

Madhu

-------------------------------------

Hi Madhu,

It is not urgent; we can discuss at the next CS team meeting.

The Resilience Team will be discussing the offset policy letter at today’s meeting. I will share once it is finalized. The law student working with Warren presented her findings about the MOU and paths forward at the April meeting. Notes can be found here:

https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-update/resilience-icap-team-april-meeting

Jen

Sarthak & I met on 4/24/2023 to work on the BFU application. 

The current version of the log we are using is attached below.

This morning, I met with Ben Isabel, the Chief of Staff for State Senator Laura Fine.  Ben is moving forward looking for grant money to fund our project at UIUC.  He is talking to the Department of Transportation which we both think should be interested given the interest of President Biden with more EVs.

Ben hopes to hear something positive within a week or so.

Regards,

George

---------------------------------

Good Morning,

I am forwarding the message I received over the weekend from George.  Cheri, as you have had discussions with George on moving forward with this, who does he consider to be his campus partner when he refers to “our project at UIUC”  Is this research park?   The original turbine on campus was accepted as a donation through isee, but we (Paul Foote and Frank Colacicco) discussed the condition of the unit, challenges and costs as excessive.   Initially, a SSC application was also submitted and not funded in our efforts.

As George is working earnestly in securing funding I am concerned if he is accurately communicating a University commitment / partnership.

Best,
Tim

Mario,

EMS Controls (David Hardin’s group) is working on a controls upgrade at Micro Nano. I am trying to connect Ayush (cc’d) with someone who can discuss the engineering on the ESCO project and potential ECM’s that were evaluated but ultimately not included in the project. Are you a good contact for this or should I reach out to GBA (Mike/Tim)?

Thanks,

Amber Perfetti

-------------------------

Amber,

I think Mike would be best.  I don’t have access to any of the work we did with ESG.  Maybe Jim C can help as well ?

Mario Zotta P.E.

---------------------

Hey Amber,

Thanks for getting this conversation started. Can you share Mike and Jim’s email ID’s? I can try contacting them.

Thank you,

Ayush

-----------------------

Dear Jim and Mike,

EMS Controls (David Hardin’s group) is working on a controls upgrade project at Micro Nano. Is there someone with whom we can discuss the potential ECM’s that were evaluated but ultimately not included in the ESCO project?

Thank you,

Ayush Gupta

-----------------------

Ayush: 

Jim and I will circle our wagons next week and get together with you by the  weeks end.

Michael J. McDermott

----------------------

Thank you, sir. That would be great.

Regards,

Ayush

---------------------

Ayush:

I was able to reach out to Deon Collins and review the 2014 ESG Unfunded list, 2011 VFA Deferred maintenance back log and 2012 Cannon MEP Condition Assessment.    We were able to start a preliminary list of energy conservation measures/deferred maintenance items for consideration:

1. Add DDC control for three (3) existing humidifiers - $30,000
2. DDC upgrade for AHU-18, 19 and 20 - $225,000
3. Replace AHU-15 (16,000 cfm ) & 16 (21,600 cfm) (Alternate 3) - $700,000
4. Replace AHU-13 (16,000 cfm) and AHU-14 and add Heat Recovery (Alternate 4) – $2.9 million
5. Main building steam valve replacement (ECM-8)- $200,000
6. Pipe Insulation (ECM-10)- 125,000
7. Active Media Filtration (ECM-15)- $800,000
8. Main Building Chilled Water Valve Replacement - $60,000
9. New Building DDC upgrade
10. New Building southwest section Lab Upgrade and VAV conversion
11. E-17A & B (25,600 cfm each) – Replace exhaust fan and move to roof - $1,200,000
12. E-18A&B (10,600 cfm each) – Replace exhaust fan and move to roof - $600,000
13. High Efficiency Fume hood and VAV conversion upgrade
14. Heat recovery Chiller
15. Acid, Solvent and Special Gas Scrubber Replacement – $700,000
16. Replace chilled water system - $221,000
17. Replace steam and Condensate - $108,700
18. Replace AHU-9(22,000 cfm) , AHU-10 (22,000 cfm), AHU-11 (5,200 CFM) , AHU-12(8,000 cfm) , and AHU-17(34,000 cfm) - $1,600,000
19. Replace ventilation systems for AHU-11 and AHU-17 - $720,000
20. Replace AHU-1,2 3,4 &5 - $1,500,000
21. Replace general exhaust EF-5 - $20,000
22. Domestic hot water heater-$200,000
23. Acid waste system – $325,000
24. Process water system - $300,000
25. Vacuum system - $220,000
26. Emergency power system- $300,000
27. Exit lighting – $25,000
28. Lighting control systems - $250,000
29. Exterior Lighting- $20,000

Call if you have any questions.  

----------------------------------

Hey David,

Below is the list of unfunded ECMs and deferred maintenance items that were considered but not acted upon by ESCO.

Thank you,

Ayush

------------------------------------------

Ayush,

This is useful information and provides a starting point.

Thanks

Hey everyone,

Here is some info from Mike McDermott from their ESCO review.

Thanks