The land and water team met for the first time of the academic year on Friday, September 26, 2025, from 2-3 PM on Teams with their new chair, Bridgette Moen. The team discussed when the upcoming iCAP 2025 will be released. The team also discussed project updates from the summer and refreshed the team objectives, goals, and current projects. The minutes and notes from the meeting are included here. 

At this Friday's Illini Lights Out event, 2011 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $305.96 in energy costs. This also prevented 2.93 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 330 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a great impact! 

Light the Night 2025 was a success, students and community members alike biked to various stations on campus to receive free bike lights.

Bike Lights Remaining:

Email from Jacob Benjamin:

Last Wednesday was Bike To Work Day! It was a success. Had good weather and good turn outs at the stations I visited.

Light The Night is tomorrow evening. Should be good weather—if warm—for that, too!

We are busy but it’s not mayhem anymore—that’s a plus!

We are low on used tires, as is common this time of year. I’ll roll over to the Urbana shop to see if they have any to spare.

The numbers:

Sales: $1,735.35
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50

Memberships: 38 for $1140
Tires/tubes: 31 for $286

• Alma Mater Plaza
• Campus Bike Center
• Campus Recreation Center East
• College of Veterinary Medicine – Lot F27
• Disability Resources and Educational Services
• I Hotel and Illinois Conference Center – Intersection of First Street and St. Mary's Road
• Orchard Downs
• Siebel Center for Computer Science – Intersection of Main Street and Mathews Avenue

The attached PDF contains performance metrics for Zipcar usage on campus for July and August 2025.

The Tree Campus Advisory Committee met to review the overall program and committee membership. 

• The new Campus Landscape Architect, Bridgette Moen, joined the committee. 
• Team members discussed potential additions to the committee, including students, faculty, and staff.
• Justin Vozzo shared a status update on the tree grant.
  • Picking up several trees - 90 planted total this year
  • Ryan is heading up the F&S side, Stirling is helping to manage the contracts
  • Justin is hosting some tree plantings across the state, Urbana and in Macomb
  • Two events each spring and fall for next tw o years
• The South Arboretum Woods rehab has several plants being added, and there are student employees funded by the SSC.
• The Red Oak Rain Garden (RORG) is doing another plant installation this fall, and works with volunteers. They also installed interpretive signage.
• The Urban Wood Reuse program is going well.  The new mill is here, and they are working to hire more students.
• The Committee began reviewing the goals in the 2024 Tree Care Plan.
  • The Tree Keeper Inventory is complete for F&S, and it is still in progress for the Arboretum. 
    • There is also the ARC GIS inventory - which pulls from Tree Keeper
    • Ongoing to keep it up to date
    • Tree surgeons are responsible for logging them into the system
    • Assistants are responsible for logging the stump removals - the sub-foreperson goes in to remove it and change it to open or vacant site
    • When it is removed it is no longer counted in the inventory
    • When a new tree is planted - working with the vacant sites and updating those, planning and potential planting spots and adding the new tree in there
    • We need to identify opportunities to update the existing inventory
      
      • Longer-term - should do an update - including the diameters of the trees - should update that, changes over time
      • Might need to be a tree expert - how to appropriately update it regularly - tree health - arborist or someone who knows a lot about trees
      • Potentially it could be through dendrology - students could potentially do DBH measurements and baseline health questions
      • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Justin is working on developing an arboriculture class, could do some tree inventory as part to that class 
    • ​​​​​​​Set a goal in 2025 Tree Care Plan to develop a comprehensive plan for handling tree inventory updates: get a plan together for how to do a regular update and comprehensive update.

Dear iCAP team members,

Thank you for your service in helping to make the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a more sustainable campus. On behalf of iSEE Director Madhu Khanna, please find attached the charge letter for the 2025-2026 academic year with an outline of your campus sustainability duties as part of an iCAP team. We look forward to your positive and impactful contributions.

As a reminder, we will also hold an iCAP teams kickoff meeting tomorrow, Sept 9, from 4:30-5:30pm to talk about the contents of the charge letter and what to expect over the upcoming year. It would be great if you are able to join us in person at the National Soybean Research Center in room 337, but a Teams link is also available if you cannot make it in person. A recording will be available if you are not available during that time. Please let me know if you did not receive the calendar invite.

Thank you,

Miriam Keep

Sustainable Programs Coordinator

iSEE