Last team meeting of the semester! We heard updates from the students conducting research and introduced them to the AASHE STARS system.

The following email was sent to the iCAP Teams:

Hello iCAP Teams,

Thank you again for serving on these important campus sustainability committees, and for your commitment to helping the university achieve the objectives in the Illinois Climate Action Plan.  As promised in the charge letters you received, we are attaching the Key Priorities Document here.  The attached document includes a section for each iCAP Team, with two parts in each section: Priority areas and in progress iCAP Portal projects.

1. Priority Areas

In order to help our campus move from STARS Gold to STARS Platinum, we have identified priority areas where our university can potentially improve. iSEE’s summer intern Tyler evaluated the latest UIUC STARS report and identified example case studies from STARS Platinum schools.  Tyler’s report is online at “Report on Improving UIUC STARS Score.” The priority areas also include topics for potential recommendations that have been brought up in previous discussions with the campus sustainability teams.  One example of this is the current efforts to reduce plastic waste on campus.

Many prior iCAP team members have expressed a desire for guidance on appropriate topics for recommendations, so we are providing this guidance to assist your team with focus areas for development of recommendations.  We encourage you to investigate these ideas with gusto; reach out to people at other schools to learn more about the ideas and contact people on our campus who would have a stake in the project (“stakeholders”) to understand how it could fit into our campus. You should also review the recommendation template to see the information that needs to be completed when you submit a recommendation to the iCAP Working Group. 

1. In progress iCAP Portal projects

The iCAP Portal has over 900 projects and contains information about our campus sustainability efforts, going back as far as 2003. The information is primarily entered by members of the iCAP Teams, the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), and a few volunteers.  We are requesting your assistance to get updates on some of the projects that are listed as “In Progress.”  For each of the projects listed in the attached file, please answer the following questions:

• Who is the current contact person? The project records on the iCAP Portal may provide past contacts, and your team members may have relevant information.
• Is the project completed? If not, what is the current status of the effort?
• What changes are needed on the iCAP Portal project page content? Pictures would be particularly nice to be able to share on the Portal.

We are very excited about this coming year, and we want to support you in any way necessary.  Please reach out to any of us at any time.

Thank you,

Morgan, Jen, and Meredith

The Sustainability Sub-Council met on 3-30-22 in preparation of the Sustainability Council meeting. The agenda was as follows: 

• Introductions
• Sustainable Land Management (for South Farms)
• Waste Reduction Strategies
• Updates – Campus Landscape Master Plan, Sustainability Gen Ed requirement
• STARS report

The meeting minutes and PowerPoint presentation are attached. 

Sol Systems is looking to present at the AASHE’s Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education (GCSHE) sometime from October 12-14 through their request for abstracts on Emerging Issues in the field.

Sol Systems is looking to present on our work expanding the impact of renewable energy projects that would certainly focus on things we did for the U of I project, namely the inclusion of pollinator habitats, zero waste construction and the work with students for their Sustainability Minor Capstone projects.

The attached file and following links are reference materials for the Transportation SWATeam, for developing draft objectives for the 2020 iCAP.

Every few years iSEE submits data to the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), in the Sustainability Tracking and Assessment Reporting System (STARS).  Our campus is STARS gold, and we would like to aim for platinum.  This is a resource as you consider 2020 iCAP objectives.

• The STARS report from Feb. 2019 is online at https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-il/report/2019-02-27/.
• Transportation data is at
  
  • Campus Fleet 0.17 / 1.00: https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-il/report/2019-02-27/OP/transportation/OP-15/
  • Student Commute Modal Split 1.80 / 2.00 https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-il/report/2019-02-27/OP/transportation/OP-16/
  • Employee Commute Modal Split 0.84 / 2.00 https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-il/report/2019-02-27/OP/transportation/OP-17/
  • Support for Sustainable Transportation 2.00 / 2.00 https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-il/report/2019-02-27/OP/transportation/OP-18/
• Innovation data is at
  
  • Bicycle Friendly University Not Applicable https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-il/report/2019-02-27/OP/transportation/OP-18/
    
    • It says we have to be Silver level for this to apply, and at the last certification time we were only Bronze.

If you click on a link above and then choose “Credit Info,” you can see the data requirements for that item.