The Bevier Café is a learning laboratory where FSHN students to get hands on experience running a food service establishment. The funding requested in this application will serve to purchase startup equipment for growing fresh herbs for use in their operation. The goals of this project are two-fold. The first is to produce “hyper-locally” grown fresh herbs to use in food production. Reducing our carbon foot print and aligning with iCAP sustainability goals. The second goal is education for students and the general public. Students will get to experience of a small scale farm to table operation. Students will be heavily involved in developing planting schedules to meet demand, plant care maintenance, and incorporating products into the menu. The public which we serve will not only be able to enjoy the fresh herbs incorporated into our recipes, but will have access to tours and educational information about the project. This proposal directly funds: 1) Indoor grow equipment for herbs 2) Installation costs from Facilities and Services.

A strategic goal of both the UIUC and the College of Business is to attract and attain the best faculty. In order to do that, it is essential to provide faculty with office space that allows them maximum productivity. The fourth floor of BIF has proven to be excellent space where faculty can work on research. The fourth floor faculty offices are highly sought after by research faculty due to quality of space, location, convenience, and security. As the College expands the fourth floor to include sixteen new offices, there is an opportunity to include a PV solar panel system. The Student Sustainability Committee has agreed to fund $60,000 toward the total initial cost of $157,340 to fully fund all $48,000 of direct construction and equipment cost for a 12.5 kW array as well as $12,000 in general conditions and contingency. Any other costs will be funded through the College of Business. This proposal directly funds: 1) Solar panels and inverters 2) Limited installation costs 3) Some contingency and general conditions.

INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre is raising awareness and address issues of Environmental Justice through the creation and production of an original play with accompanying educational materials and holding an inaugural National Call for Scripts focused on the theme Environmental Justice Is Social Justice. Through SSC funding, two theatrical pieces will be produced. The first is a newly-penned work from University of Illinois students and staff, and will be performed on campus throughout Fall 2017. The second will be a series of vignettes submitted through a national call for scripts. Both pieces will be performed dozens of times on campus, and each performance will be followed by reflection and discussion. This proposal directly funds: 1) Honoraria for national script submissions 2) Printing and publicity costs 3) Equipment rentals 4) A small amount of wages for student interns.

Subsurface (tile) drainage has helped to sustain the productivity of our farm lands by draining excess water from the field. Excess nutrient losses from our tile-drained agricultural fields have contributed to several water quality issues in the region including the formation of hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been well-documented that tile drain age is responsible for highly soluble nitrate loss but recent studies have demonstrated that it also contributes to dissolved phosphorus loss from the agricultural fields. This project aims to develop ceramic pellets using fly ash and other additives with minimum or no heavy metal leaching. The specific objectives of this proposed research project are to: a) optimize the proportion of fly ash and other additives for high phosphorous removal and limit heavy metal leaching, b) conduct laboratory experiments to analyze the performance of pellet for dissolved phosphorous reduction. This proposal directly funds: 1) Equipment rental and use charges 2) Supplies and Chemicals 3) Student Hourly Labor.

This project funds the Illini EcoConcept team for their efforts to design and manufacture a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Urban Concept Vehicle to compete in the Shell EcoMarathon Competition in 2017. While the competition has always been centered on energy efficiency, it also promotes and rewards innovation that leads to a more sustainable energy system to support communities around the globe. Specifically, in the Urban-Concept Vehicle division, teams compete to have the most efficient vehicle that incorporates many features of real-world cars, such as wet-weather driving ability, headlights, turn indicators, and so on. The Illini EcoConcept has chosen to power their vehicle using hydrogen fuel cell, which has been gaining popularity lately, and is seeking to break the competition efficiency record in the coming school year. The team would like to build on the 2nd place finish in the Americas region last year and be able to compete in the world championship. Specifically, the team strives to (i) promote the use of hydrogen fuel cell as a clean alternative to combustion engines, (ii) build a whole new drivetrain system that would eliminate the causes of inefficiencies found in the previous years, (iii) design and fabricate a lighter chassis and body, and (iv) develop an air-cooling system that would prevent overheating of the system. This proposal directly funds: 1) Parts and Supplies 2) Manufacturing Costs for Custom Modules.

The ECBS SWATeam would like to be able to continue the ‘Illini Lights Out’ program and expand it to one Friday night each month during the academic year. Interest in doing so is based on the phenomenal success of the pilot ‘Illini Lights Out’ conducted on April 15th, 2016. In an Illini Lights Out event, pairs or small teams of volunteer students are accompanied by campus security/other personnel (as necessary) and are assigned buildings to audit on the main Quad to turn off non-essential lights in classrooms/bathrooms not in use. Volunteers meet at a designated location to sign in, review safety protocols and receive their tally sheets. Students use these sheets to indicate any empty rooms where they turned off lights. After the audit is complete, students return all forms to designated staff and are then eligible for a complimentary meal (pizza/burritos) in exchange for their assistance. This event both results in direct energy conservation impact on campus and also helps to inspire students to make small behavioral changes to their routine to enhance sustainability more broadly and throughout life. Buildings audited in the pilot project included Altgeld Hall, English Building, Lincoln Hall, Gregory Hall, Daniel Kinley Hall, Foreign Languages Building, Davenport Hall, and Noyes Laboratory. Given that we would plan to audit a similar number of buildings each event this year, it is expected that 16–24 student volunteers are needed per event. This proposal directly funds: 1) Print and digital advertising for volunteer recruitment 2) Volunteer incentives.

The Lobby of KCPA is a large 5,000 square foot student-centric multiuse area, arguably one of the most used spaces in one of the most iconic buildings on the campus of U of I Urbana-Champaign. The facility hosts an estimated 200,000 thousand guests, employees, faculty and students every year. The building is nearing its 50th anniversary, and assuring that the functions of the building continue to be upgraded and enhanced to maintain its popularity, frequent usage, and increased sustainable condition in keeping with the campus strategic plan is a priority of the Campus and the College of Fine and Applied Arts. Current fixtures in the KCPA Lobby are older LED technology built into the ceiling with fewer than two years remaining on their life expectancy. The goal of this project would be to replace the existing 560 LED fixtures (32 watts each) with new LED fixtures (18 watts each) that have the advantage of long term fixture life and with the added advantage of simply unscrewing an old LED lamp after 10 years or so and screwing in a new LED lamp. The need to replace fixtures after another 10 years will have been negated, and now the operations personnel of the building will be able to replace the lamps as needed for decades to come. This proposal directly funds: 1) LED fixtures, lamps, and controls 2) Field programming 3) Labor from skilled trades to remove old units and install new ones.

Project Paplet began in Malaysia as a paper recycling campaign aiming to take once-used paper and turn it into recycled notebooks for children in need. Localizing the project to the University of Illinois, students from the Society of Women Engineers will be collecting used paper from campus departments and producing hundreds of paplets to be donated to the on-campus Child Development Laboratory for use by the pupils. This project aims to educate the public on the social impact that recycling can have on the community. It also aims to increase awareness on the uses of recycled paper beyond its traditional applications. This proposal directly funds: 1) Spiral binding equipment 2) Supplies and cardstock.

Root to Roof is a program established to educate students about the sustainability and availability of urban wood for the design and fabrication of furniture, outdoor installations, homes and buildings. It does this through harvesting waste timber from campus and the City of Urbana and milling it to become usable lumber. Milling material locally produces hundreds of pounds of CO2 annually compared to tens of thousands to buy the same material from all over the USA. This also allows the Root to Roof program to utilize otherwise useful material for beneficial projects instead of that very same material being shredded into mulch. This creates a net gain of carbon sequestration locally. As this program expands it will be setting progressive goals for sustainability and urban wood utilization through selling wood back to the F&S Mill and Carpentry shops for use campus wide and using this material to fabricate indoor and outdoor items for campus use. This proposal directly funds: 1) Milling Equipment 2) Facility Upgrades to Accommodate New Equipment 3) Student Labor for Fabrication Coordination and Training.