iCAP Resilience Team had their last meeting of the academic year on Tuesday, April 25th, at 1PM. The team edited the Carbon Offset Statement. The team will send this this statement as a recommendation format to the iWG. Afterwards, with the approvals of iSEE, iWG, and F&S, the team will send this statement to Chancellor Office. Attached is the meeting recording.
Below is an email from Serena Armendaris with Carbon Solutions Group:
Hey Morgan,
My name is Serena Armendaris and I work for a firm called Carbon Solutions Group (CSG). We specialize in environmental credits & projects for ESG claims and have been in the business since 2006. Our Sustainability offerings include:
Currently, Reporting Year 2022 Wind RECs are offered @ $1.90/MWh and US Carbon Offsets are @$9.25.
Do you think anyone on your team might have time for a 15 minute introductory call to discuss further?
Thanks and regards,
Meredith Moore and Tyler Swanson of iSEE met with Alicia Freter of the ACES Study Abroad office on August 31st to discuss options for developing a carbon offset program for students studying abroad in the college of ACES.
Highlights from the conversation include beginning the program by having students volunteer for iSEE in lieu of purchasing carbon offsets. Providing students studying abroad with Eco-Ambassador training was also discussed, with the idea that trained Eco-Ambassadors could lead iSEE sponsored events. The most equitable way to offset carbon emissions is still being discussed.
The Resilience iCAP Team had its first online meeting of the year on Friday, September 9th from 2:00 - 3:00 PM. The team reviewed the Resilience Charge Letter, talked about ground rules of the team, reviewed seven Resilience iCAP objectives, and shared updates on each objective. Meeting minutes and ground rules documents are attached.
Dana Kirk, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, presented a webinar on May 31, 2022 titled "Universities go green! A case study from the Michigan State University South Campus Anaerobic Digester", which also featured Marcello Pibiri, Senior Research Engineer at Energy Resources Center UIC.
In case you missed the live webinar or if you would like to view the recorded session again, go to https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/7048417514261610508. You can register with your name and email to watch the recording. Also attached is the presentation by Dana Kirk from this webinar.
Marcello and his team at ERC organize the New Technical Education & Analysis for Community Hauling and Anaerobic Digesters (TEACH AD) Program to educate people about Anaerobic Digesters.
DRAFT White Paper: "Recommendations for Initiating a Local Carbon Offsets Pilot Program for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"
Submitted by Stacy Gloss on May 9, 2022
Conclusions & Recommendations reported below:
The University of Illinois iCAP calls for reducing emissions from unavoidable travel by purchasing carbon offsets and creating a local carbon offset program. Program planning and oversight can be achieved with the formation of a committee on carbon offsets and local offsets. Concurrently, the chancellors office should delegate where a carbon-off-set account would be housed – the account needs to be set up to receive and administer funds for competitive projects.
The most that the iCAP Resilience Committee could do is submit a recommendation to the iWG to convene a campus working group for a local offset program directed by the Chancellor’s office and/or central Sustainability Council; and direct the set-up of an account to receive and administer funds. Sustainability professionals hired at the University of Illinois could administer the program with oversight from the carbon offsets working group/committee.
Edits or comments to this paper should be submitted to sgloss@illinois.edu for review by the iCAP Resilience committee.
The document can be viewed here: https://uofi.box.com/s/w007s43qyhtdcbjbmzb4asjt70weueyq
iSEE Carbon Offset Program: Technology Research and Options
Authors: Jane Williams, Rachel Pu, Fina Healy, Natalia Ptaszek, and Angela Andrada
Students from the ABE469 Capstone Course taught by professor Ann Witmer met over the course of the Spring 2022 semester to research renewable energy technologies and carbon sink projects appropriate for campus and communtiy in our surrounding county-vicinity. The purpose is to provide technology options for the Local Carbon Offset Program described in the iCAP objectives. A local carbon offset program would be designed to offset staff & faculty travel, and the offset funds generated can be used in local projects that reduce or sequester carbon on campus and in the community. The technologies reviewed by the student engineering team include:
The final deliverables report and presentation are attached.
Meredith Moore and Stacy Gloss are working with ABE469 - Capstone students in the spring 2022 semester.
Students will obtain (be provided) green house gas emission data for this consulting project such as: .
For purposes of this project, the U of I client is aiming to eliminate emissions for air travel by FY30. This project is aimed to offset emissions by 30,000 tons per year by FY 30, related to iCAP objective 3.5.
The client should research the Illinois Climate Action Plan carbon reduction goals related to unavoidable air-travel. The client would like for the consultants to analyze technologies appropriate for campus and our surrounding community; and make recommendations based on this analysis.
Technologies that may reduce carbon, or offset carbon on the local scale are listed below.
The consulting team should evaluate the scope and project size for technology adoption. Including the anticipated GHGs avoided or offset with project adoption. What is the cost of installation, including labor costs? Provide data about cost effectiveness, with breakdown on cost of project per pound or tonne of GHG emissions saved. The projects should be ranked with most cost effective to least effective. Your research, analysis, and recommendations will be presented by the client to the iSEE Resilience Team and other campus stakeholders to inform a local carbon offset program.
From: Ricci, Marcus <mericci@urbanaillinois.us>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2021 1:32 PM
To: icap-resilience at lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: [icap-resilience] Revolving Loan Fund example for evaluation
*** Email From An External Source ***
Today’s Lunchtime Stroll Through the Internet: “Local Carbon Offset Programs.”
I hit on “The Offset Project” which started off in 2010 as a not-for-profit program in Monterey Bay, to fund sustainability programs that reduce carbon emissions: https://theoffsetproject.org/programs-and-services/local-offset-projects/top-local-offset-projects/.
They eventually morphed into a for-profit group that helps/services others to do the same: http://www.bluestrikeenvironmental.com/. One of their clients was UC Santa Cruz and the City of Watsonville, the latter of which instituted a Carbon Fund Ordinance which “establishes a Carbon Fee to be charged to all development projects except single family residential alterations, temporary buildings, and/or building area that is not used as conditioned space. The goal of the Carbon Fund Ordinance is to encourage the implementation of renewable energy in development projects. The money collected from the Carbon Fund Fee are placed in a separate account to be used for citywide greenhouse gas reduction projects.” https://www.cityofwatsonville.org/1765/Carbon-Fund-Ordinance
So, if we (someone) wanted to pick their brains (for free) Kristin from Blue Strike Environmental would be willing to chat with us, and provide the Power Point presentations they used at City of Watsonville.
The UC Santa Cruz Carbon Fund sounds similar to UIUC’s sustainability funds, so it could be used, in general, to pay for offsetting carbon: https://sustainability.ucsc.edu/engage/funding/carbon-fund/about/index.html.
By the way, I *really* dislike the use of the word “offset.” I feel that an offset is when you are paying for emitting something, when what we are trying to do (I think?) is actually *reduce* carbon emissions.
Merriam-Webster: : to cancel or reduce the effect of (something) : to create an equal balance between two things
Are we trying to reduce the emissions themselves? Or allowing all of the emissions and just fixing their effects?
Be safe, stay healthy,
Marcus
Marcus Ricci, AICP
Planner II
Community Services Department | City of Urbana
400 S Vine St | Urbana, Illinois 61801
217.328.8283
Scott Tess shared these resources for local projects:
https://www.green-e.org/certified-resources/carbon-offsets
https://www.climateactionreserve.org/how/voluntary-offset-program/
Stacy Gloss, Meredith Moore, Morgan White, and Scott Tess met to discuss Resilience Team work.
We discussed:
11/17/2021
Present: Morgan White, Meredith More, Eric Green, Tony Mancuso, Stacy Gloss
Gloss provided an overview of the local carbon offset objective as described in the iCAP. There was discussion that there are two sides to the issue. 1. The funding mechanism. 2. What projects are funded by off-setting faculty & staff travel impacts?
The team was asked to review the carbon offset programs by the University of California System and Duke University as two different models. The first is a campus-system internal model where funds are used to develop projects on campuses throughout the system. A university-system advisory board receives applications for projects and approves the projects that meet program requirements. The Duke carbon offset initiative involves a portfolio of offsets including a methane capture waste-to-energy at an industrial farm, urban tree planting program, avoided conversion, wetland restoration, and a pilot program for residential energy efficiency piloted in 2012 --- these programs happen off-campus.
We agreed that there is an economies-of-scale issue with local off-sets to overcome. For local-community-based projects, the cost per off-set is going to be higher than aggregating funds into one industrial scale project or program. An carbon-off-set company, for example, might contact a city and offer $1.00 per tree for off-sets, but it costs over $400 to install and maintain a tree. (A program like this appears to generate a very small added value to the paid organization.)
U of I campus renewable energy & energy efficiency projects can be tracked by the campus energy office. For community off-sets, an agency (university or otherwise) would need to set up a mechanism to collect and distribute funds for community-based projects, perhaps through a non-for-profit interface. Projects can include urban tree-planting, renewable energy, energy efficiency, prairie restoration etc. 3rd party verification is needed.
As a next step, this team and others must define "local" in "local offset program" in order to meet this objective in the iCAP. Is the program going to be internal to campus, or include the local community as recipients of funds community projects?
This team must also interpret what the iCAP is saying to off-set.
These questions are fundamental to designing and implementing a local-carbon-offset program.
10/5 Carbon Offsets Meeting: Stacy Gloss and Eric Green briefly discussed Carbon Offsets. An intern or 2 will be lined up for the Spring who could potentially work on a literature review as related to this objective.
First launched in 2005 by non-profit Forest Trends, Ecosystem Marketplace (EM) has continuously run the world’s first and only independent international carbon offsets market tracking, reporting, and knowledge-sharing mechanism. In April, EM launched its new Global Carbon Survey online platform, aimed at taking carbon market transparency to the next level.
The Resilience iCAP Team met on April 6th, 2021 to brainstorm ideas for public engagement for creating our first Environmental Justice Plan. Members identified important avenues for learning about local intutions on what are relevant barriers to equitable health and safety in our communities. Moving forward, the Biodiversity Plan and EJ Plan will look to possibly engage the Department of Urban Planning and other students who will work on focus group interviews over the summer. The meeting concluded with an overview of the current progress of all Resilience iCAP objectives and future steps.
Meeting minutes and chat log are attached!
Leah Courtney and Parima Michareune, two GFX Scholars in the Women in Engineering program, worked with Meredith Moore in spring 2020 to develop a carbon offset manual for University of Illinois study abroad programs (manual attached). In fall 2020, we will work to pilot this carbon offset program for engineering students who study abroad.
iSEE intern, Julija Sakutyte, and Meredith Moore have conducted preliminary research into successful local carbon offset programs, including what other institutions have implemented (summary attached). Next steps include: select a value per pound of CO2, develop scope of carbon emissions, identify local projects to fund, and track emissions reduced.
Final Project Deliverables for Spring 2020
There were 7 projects completed by the WIE-GFX Abroad Scholars in the Spring 2020 semester of ENG 177
