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Projects Updates for key objective: No name

  1. Recycling e-waste, containers, and bikes on campus

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    IGBA held an e-waste recycling event on campus and in the research park.

    F&S provided recycling containers for the Illinois Marathon.

    Sustainability Staff helped the Campus Bike Project (CBP) to prep 350 old, abandoned bicycles from last year’s campus-wide cleanup in order to donate them to an organization, Working Bikes, which will refurbish the bicycles and ship them to Uganda to be donated to those in need of affordable transportation. Staff and CBP volunteers worked for over 12 hours to prep the bikes and over 4 hours to load them onto a truck to be taken to Working Bikes’ Chicago location.   The Parking Department was also involved, as the timing of the donation was critical in order to clear out Parking’s warehouse to make room for this year’s campus-wide cleanup of abandoned bicycles. 

  2. Spring iCAP Forum Held

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability Engagement and Outreach

    At the spring iCAP Forum, sustainability staff presented a status update about progress towards meeting our commitments in the Illinois Climate Action Plan.  This included a broad overview of the various initiatives that are currently underway and a summary of the next steps in this process.  After the presentation, participants were asked to work in groups to provide feedback about setting priorities for further iCAP implementation.  A summary of the feedback will be available after the Spring 2012 semester.

  3. Portal construction under development

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability iCAP Portal

    The iCAP Portal has been approved for support from the Office of Sustainability/Chancellor, and construction of the portal is under development.  Initial entry screens have been created and were shared at the iCAP Forum on April 16.  The backend database will be developed over the summer 2012. 

  5. SSC supported “Weatherization” project coming to conclusion

    Associated Project(s): 
    Weatherization of Small Campus Buildings [ARCHIVED]

    The SSC supported “Weatherization” project is coming to its conclusion.  The six RSO teams that participated in this program have submitted their reports to the Weatherization intern, and the F&S Maintenance Division has identified the costs of the recommended improvements.  These will be summarized and implemented after the Spring 2012 semester.

  6. Metering in Residence Halls

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    Bryan Johnson, from University Housing's Sustainability Council, has reported that residence halls PAR and FAR have individual metering setup, but Blaisdell Hall's metering is connected to the mechancial room and dining hall. LAR and Allen have individual metering, but the dining hall feeds into both dining halls. Information about metering in Busey-Evans is still needed.

  7. Ikenberry Commons Suggestion

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    The projects committee in the US Green Building Council student chapter is working on a "Green Your Dorm" project encouraging dorms to save energy and water. The SSC has approved funding to put individual metering in dorms. The USGBC chapter made the suggestion that Ikenberry Commons resdence halls be the first to receive meter upgrades.

  8. Undergrads and Graduates work on Sustainability Projects

    Associated Project(s): 
    Independent Student Projects

    Working with James Scholar in Barbara Minsker’s engineering class to make recommendations related to sustainability for the Grainger crosswalk on Springfield.

    Staff hosted interviews with about a dozen Rhet 105 students about various sustainability topics.

    Urban Planning masters student Marcus Ricci is doing a GIS project about bike parking capacity in relationship to the buildings they serve.

    The LINC U of I Bikes section sent out a bike sharing survey and had a great response rate, a summary will be available by the end of the spring semester.

  10. Monthly press on sustainability on campus

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability Engagement and Outreach

    Engineering News Record is doing a story on the University of Illinois about green buildings/LEED certification.

    Daily Illini article about campus sustainability progress.

    Staff created flowcharts for sustainability themes, as preliminary step to filling in the content on the Sustainability Portal website.  Staff provided field definitions and sample data for the database tables that will be available through the portal.  Also, we met with staff from MSTE and drafted the page layouts for the website, which will be shared at the iCAP Forum in April. 

  11. Engagement with other schools, information sharing

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability Engagement and Outreach

    We participated in meeting with representatives from Columbia, Missouri about their transit goals.  Articles were written about the visit: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/mar/13/gold-standard/, http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/03/13/final-bus-trip/, and http://wjf.im/xkmY5f.

    We also provided information to Arizona State University about our bike registration system and intentions.

  14. Natural Resources Building

    Associated Project(s): 
    Lighting Retrofit #5 [ARCHIVED]

    As part of the Lighting Retrofit #5, 2,711 T-12 fixtures in the Natural Resources Building were replaced with more energy-efficient T-8 fixtures. This switch will incur an Annual kWh Savings of 424,466 hours. The simple payback for this project is 2.2 years.

  18. Bike to Work Day and Campus Bike Project Make Progress

    Associated Project(s): 
    Increase Bicycle Use

    Bike to Work Day (BTWD) planning is underway. Staff raised $1,250 in February from sponsors, which goes to Champaign County Bikes for the event.  Three on-campus Bike Station locations were organized, in addition to several off-campus Bike Stations.  University Housing graciously agreed to provide food and drinks for the on-campus Bike Stations, as they did last year.

    The Bike Sharing key staff members met with project champion, Mike Lyon from AITS, to provide a status update on the bike sharing feasibility study.  The bike sharing intern developed a presentation about departmental bike sharing, which will be taken to Legal Counsel and Purchasing contacts for final approval.  Then Colleges will be contacted before departments are approached to encourage departmental bike sharing implementation.  

    F&S Planning staff interviewed firms to engineer road improvements, including Fourth Street bike lanes from Armory Avenue to Kirby Avenue, and Sixth Street bike lanes from Armory Avenue to Gregory Drive.

    The bike parking intern completed and submitted a proposal to the SSC to replace existing “donut-hole” racks with campus standard racks.  He also met with staff at Christopher Hall and the Illini Union about upgrading their bike parking areas.  Additionally, staff worked with a representative from Champaign County Bikes to arrange a pilot test of an alternative bike parking rack, the Varsity Rack.

    The Campus Area Transportation Study (CATS) agencies met in February and agreed that the Campus Bike Plan document should be for University-owned pathways, and it should be in agreement with the City of Urbana Bike Plan, the Champaign Transportation Plan, and the County Greenways and Trails Plan.

    The Campus Bike Project submitted a proposal to the SSC for expanded open hours with student assistants.

    Plans are underway for a bike race on May 5 in the Research Park.  About 300-400 race participants are anticipated.  There will be a community ride that morning, as well as a race in the City of Urbana on May 6.

  19. EMC^2 Proposal, F&S Steam Reduction, Virtualization

    Associated Project(s): 
    Centralized Energy Efficiency Efforts

    Staff further developed the Energy Management and Control Center (EMC^2) proposal for Chancellor Wise to share with potential donors/partners.  This process included preliminary documentation of the existing energy distribution and tracking computer programs.

    F&S staff started discussions about a steam reduction project at the Main Library, which includes repairing steam traps, replacing Pressure Reducing Valves (PRV), and repairing or replacing other valves.

    F&S is moving towards virtualization for their IT servers.  That will let F&S move to a single server, which will reduce the cooling load and energy demand.  This project can be replicated in other departments for additional energy savings.

  20. Partnerships, Engagement in Local Efforts

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability Engagement and Outreach

    On February 16, CCNet hosted Angela Adams, the Recycling Coordinator at the City of Champaign, to explain the proposed bag ban in the city; Pattsi Petrie, a Champaign County Board Member, to discuss local foods; Mike Monson, the Urbana Chief of Staff, to explain the Electrical Aggregation proposal; and Marya Ryan, from the Urbana Sustainability Advisory Commission to review the City of Urbana’s Climate Action Plan.

    Staff facilitated meetings with students and staff about potential letters of support for the City of Champaign Single Use Disposable Paper and Plastic Bags study item.

    In an effort to standardize emissions calculations throughout the community and county, staff met with transportation planners from the Regional Planning Commission to share information about calculating transportation emissions.

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