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UIUC is Front and Center on Freezer Challenge Webpage
Associated Project(s):UIUC is the first image on the My Green Labs web page. The link of the webpage is https://www.freezerchallenge.org/
Attached Files:Transportation iCAP Meeting 10/10/2022
Associated Project(s):The Transportation iCAP team met on October 20th 2022 to discuss the team's presentation for the upcoming sustainability celebration, review the list of priorities assigned to the team for the year, and discuss progress on fleet replacement plans and the potential for university-wide clean vehicle purchasing policies.
Link to meeting recording: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_ufyde47b
Attached Files:Energy iCAP Team Meeting 10/7/2022
Associated Project(s):The energy iCAP team met on Friday, October 7th 2022 to review the team's presentation for the campus sustainability celebration, review the team's priorities for the year, and discuss options for advancing the proposed clean energy plan and increasing procurement of renewable energy through power purchasing agreements.
Link to meeting recording: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_5bh3gs4r
Weekly Update: Strong Towns, Bike Summit, Working Bikes
Associated Project(s):All, Big week of events! On Tuesday, Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns is speaking at the Illinois Terminal and I’ll attend to see how our work as bike advocates and a non-profit can help bolster a strong and vibrant community. And Wednesday is the Illinois Bike Summit at the I-hotel. I’ll be there all day and reducing hours at the Bike Center to account for that. Accordingly, we’ll be open 4 – 6p on that day. I never fail to learn something at this yearly event and am happy to see it back here on campus.
I’ll be counting/organizing bikes for donation as well this week. Hope to have the Donation Day set by end of the week and so we can begin rallying for some support/help. WB has already agreed to pay for Manolo’s!
The numbers:
Visitors: 51Sales: $1,214.50
Memberships: 17 for $510
Tire/tubes: 8 for $94Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center CoordinatoriSEE Green Event Certifications
Associated Project(s):Happy campus sustainability month! We wanted to highlight some recent iSEE Green Event Certifications for the month of October.
iSEE TED Talk: Eco-Edition Series, Certified October 2022
iSEE Campus Sustainability Month Trash Clean Up, Certified October 2022
iSEE Water Taste Test, Certified October 2022
We are excited to see everyone at our sustainability events this month!
MASSMAIL Inaugural Campus Landscape Master Plan 10/6/22
Associated Project(s):The follow is a MassMail sent by Dr. Ehab Kamarah.
MASSMAIL - Inaugural Campus Landscape Master Plan
October 6, 2022 2:59 PMThe University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign landscape contributes powerfully to the character of the campus and its excellence as a land grant institution with global impact. Through thoughtful planning and design guidance, the first-ever Campus Landscape Master Plan (CLMP) ensures our treasured landscape will thrive for many years.
The CLMP will shape the vision of a future outdoor environment that will protect natural heritage, strengthen ecosystems, enhance shared experiences and learning opportunities, and provide a welcoming experience for students, faculty, staff, alums, community members, and guests.
An executive summary of the CLMP and a video of the plan's concepts and designs are available on the Facilities & Services website. We strongly encourage you to share these items with others to help them know about this inaugural effort. The plan builds on concepts developed in the Campus Master Plan and Resilient Landscape Strategy and implements sustainability objectives established in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) to meet the Climate Leadership Commitments, including being carbon neutral as soon as possible and building resilience to climate change in our community.
Thank you to all contributors who helped develop the CLMP: core committee members, unit stakeholders, and the many individuals who guided us and provided feedback during the various input sessions and public forum. We also want to thank the plan consultants, Design Workshop and their project team, for their hard work and dedication throughout the process.
As you read the CLMP and view the district recommendations, please remember the plan will be a living document that immediately serves as a foundation to help guide the projects and initiatives that will shape the future of our campus. Ongoing collaborations and partnerships are critical to preserving, maintaining, and improving our campus landscape moving forward. If you have suggestions or questions, please contact University Landscape Architect Brent Lewis bcl@illinois.edu.
We are excited to begin incorporating the CLMP strategies into ongoing work and turn these ideas into reality.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ehab Kamarah
Associate Vice Chancellor and Executive Director, Facilities & ServicesGreen Cleaning Program Update 10-2022
Associated Project(s):According to Dominika Szal, F&S Waste Management Intern, "We have found green alternatives for most of the floor cleaning products as well as some multi-surface/glass cleaning products. We are continuing our search for green alternatives for other types of products such as carpet cleaners, bleach, etc.."
Here is a link to the WELL Building Standard.
Land and Water iCAP Meeting 10/4/2022
Associated Project(s):On October 4th, the Land and Water iCAP team met to make final edits on the Campus Sustainability Celebration slides, review the Campus Landscape Master Plan, and discuss regenerative agriculture research on the South Farms.
Meeting minutes are attached.
Attached Files:Geothermal Contracts Due October 31st
Associated Project(s):Below is the link to an email from Geothermal Urbana-Champaign:
https://mailchi.mp/urbanaillinois.us/geopowerhour8-7284589?e=acd6a2962b
Ohio State University includes the waste survey as part of the agenda for the upcoming BTAF meeting, to solicit a better survey response rate
Associated Project(s):From: Leciejewski, Mary leciejewski.8@osu.edu
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2022 12:19 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren dlhulse2@illinois.edu
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja dszal2@illinois.edu
Subject: RE: Scheduling a Waste Management SurveyHi Daphne,
Pleasure speaking with you last week. I was going to send out an agenda for the Big 10 and Friends meeting on Thursday. Are you still interested in introducing yourself and your project to try to solicit a better response rate? If so, I can put you on the agenda.
Thanks! Mary
Urban Biodiversity Master Plan Student Support
Associated Project(s):Biodiversity Plan intern Gabriel Harper-Hagen is looking for students and student groups to help him develop two iNaturalist surveys for the project. Here is the detailed explanation from Gabe:
The survey will act as a pilot for future surveying around campus and the broader community. We will have two surveys: one focused on animals and one focused on plants. This is because of the different methods of surveying each. The surveys will benefit from as many students that would be interested in this for either one (Or both). The survey will attempt to efficiently gather data about the diversity of plant and animal species found on campus to create a baseline for what is present and to help identify gaps on the campus where diversity may be lacking. If successful, I hope to expand the model to other parts of the community including the park districts to have larger community based BioBlitz seasonally to keep track of the diversity in the area and measure success of the biodiversity plan.
As far as students can help, we need enough people to survey the area efficiently in a reasonable amount of time. The student groups and individual students would be helping in an initial survey that focuses only on the campus. My thought is that a date will be set for each of the two surveys where the participants can join to go over brief instructions on identifying plants with iNaturalist, adding them to the project, and explaining the purpose of surveying. iNaturalist allows for specific project data to be collected within a region which is then peer reviewed. Ideally, there will be some experts (students or professors if appropriate) that join for each survey to help with logistics and identification. I hope this will not only be a useful database for our campus to utilize, but also a fun learning experience.
All iCAP students and environmental student groups are encouraged to participate. If interested, please email Gabe (harperh2@illinois.edu) and Resilience iCAP Team clerk Asli Topuzlu (aslit2@illinois.edu).
Weekly Update: Slower times, Business Hours, Sorting abandoned bicycles
Associated Project(s):All, Slower times here at the Bike Center (in terms of visitors). We’re almost slow enough that we can reinstate the First Visit Free policy. Not quite there, as we’ll have lulls but pick back up again.
It was discovered that the CBC Google Business hours were not updated when we moved to M – F, which explains why we we’ve been so slow on Tues/Thurs. That has since been corrected so we’ll see if that impacts visit numbers this week.
Last week I started sorting bikes at the warehouse for shipment/donation. We’ll be saving even more bikes than usual as we’re critically low on consumable parts like tires.
We managed to rehab a Huffy to an acceptable degree. The frame was in good shape and we piloted a new freewheel system that should hopefully help keep those types of bikes rideable for longer. That bike sold in about 20 minutes. Demand for cheap bikes is evergreen.
This week I’ll do more sorting at the warehouse and coordinating the donation, an interview or two, and otherwise business-as-usual.
The numbers:
Visitors: 78
Sales: $479.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $70
Memberships: 5 for $150
Tires/tubes: 9 for $58Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center CoordinatorCaptstone meeting Week 1: Introduction to the topics
Associated Project(s):I, Aparna Padmakumar from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning am pursuing a master’s degree with a concentration focus in the field of transportation and currently is looking to take up a potential capstone project with the transportation iCAP team hoping to contribute to better bicycle safety/access on the UIUC campus. After multiple discussions and meetings with Sarthak Prasad, the projects that I will be helping out with would be the ‘Bicycle Friendly University Status’ and ‘Reducing Bicycle Theft on Campus’ through the months of October until May. In today’s kick-off meeting (10/3/2022) previous data, studies, and information were shared with me for better clarity and expected to go through all the previously collected information on the iCap portal. Sarthak guided me through the 2022 Bicycle Friendly University (BFU) application to achieve Gold-level BFU certification and also the Bike at Illinois website as a source of information for the second ongoing project. I am also in constant touch with the other concerned team members to note down important background information on these 2 projects for a better sense of direction before our next weekly Monday meeting’
Metric for EV charging stations - Suggestion by Ria
Associated Project(s):Hi Morgan,
The proposed metrics (i.e., number of level 2 chargers) are certainly interesting. Could we also track the chargers' utilization? My group can help with such an analysis as needed. I am happy to discuss opportunities for a more comprehensive assessment of shared charging use by the university fleet and other passenger vehicles in the university. Effective charging sharing and management schemes will play an important role as electric vehicle adoption and use grow. Thanks in advance!
Best regards,
Ria
--
Eleftheria (Ria) Kontou, PhD
Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental EngineeringUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
publish.illinois.edu/kontou/home
New publication: Evacuation route planning for alternative fuel vehicles https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2022.103837
September 2022 Buyer's Share Report
Associated Project(s):RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the September 2022 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 1333.9 Megawatt hours.
The Septmeber 2022 Buyer's Share Report is attached below.
Attached Files:F&S, ISTC, iSEE, and Illini Union meet to discuss the first steps of the waste characterization study
Associated Project(s):From: Scrogum, Joy Joann <jscrogum@illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2022 4:18 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Samaras, Zach <zsamaras@illinois.edu>; Feher, Savannah <sfeher@illinois.edu>; Vogel, Kealie Diann <kdvogel2@illinois.edu>; Varney, Peter W <pvarney@illinois.edu>
Subject: Information available in the "UC Campus Waste Audit" group on TeamsDaphne, thanks for taking the time to speak with our ISTC team this afternoon.
As noted, the previous two UIUC building waste characterization reports (file names "Baseline_Waste_Stream_Characterization_Study_Final_Report" and "Waste characterization phase 2") are in the “Files” section of the “UC Campus Waste Audit” group on teams, so you can see the buildings previously audited and consider whether to include those in the new study for some temporal comparison.
The document “Waste Audit Activity Zone Summary” provides links to our recent work with Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Missouri State University (MSU). When this document was originally added to Teams, the MSU plan had not yet been published, but it was released this month, so I’ve updated the file with a link to that plan. This summary document shows the activity zones defined at each university, the number of representative buildings analyzed within each zone, and refers to the specific pages within each respective plan in which activity zones are discussed. For all three of these campuses, ISTC conducted waste characterizations using the activity zone approach, summarized current waste management practices, and collected feedback from focus groups (we conducted the focus group sessions for Northwestern an UIC, but MSU conducted their own sessions virtually during the pandemic). We then worked with campus personnel to consider the data collected, along with their waste reduction and diversion goals, and formulated recommended strategies to reach those goals as part of waste management plans.
Beyond focus group sessions, in past studies we’ve also collected feedback from conversations during building walkthroughs, as part of more informal conversations, and from surveys like the UIUC building occupant survey (also on Teams). We’re happy to work with you to find the right balance of approaches for your purposes. The questions from the previous building occupant survey, for example, need not be presented as part of a survey this time around. Perhaps those could be among the questions for discussion within in-person focus groups.
Also within the files on Teams is a copy of an email in which I described the activity zone approach and put forth some possible zones for the UIUC campus, along with some campus buildings that might fall within them (including buildings that were part of previous waste characterizations).
So, take some time to consider all of this material, and let me know some days/times that would work for your schedule later in October or early November to work with ISTC on the definition of activity zones, specific buildings to include, and whether/how to incorporate stakeholder engagement in ISTC’s proposal. We look forward to working with you!
Best wishes,
Joy
Joy Scrogum
Assistant Scientist, Sustainability
LEED Green Associate | Sustainability Excellence Professional (SEP)
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Prairie Research Institute
Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC)
Champaign, IL 61820
Attached Files:Met with University of Maryland over Zoom
Associated Project(s):SSC Mass mail for Staff
Associated Project(s):Morgan White suggested that SSC should create a mass mail that goes to faculty and staff asking them to provide the Illinois Green Fund Information ot their students.
Met with Indiana University over Zoom
Associated Project(s):