As of June 1, 2012, the University will again try to meet campus energy without burning coal in the summer months.

The Office of Sustainability (OS) applied for the Illinois Governor's Sustainability Award in 2012.  The OS provides overarching leadership to transform campus into a model for sustainability and to integrate sustainability principles into our campus culture.  The OS scope of work encompasses all components of the University’s mission: education, research, and engagement, as well as effecting change in campus operations and policies.  The OS sets campus-wide sustainability goals and works to enhance communication and collaboration among campus units to achieve these goals. The OS also provides organizational leadership for numerous sustainability initiatives that bring together campus and community on campus. Much of the work by the OS is about educating, motivating, communicating, and celebrating sustainability with various stakeholders.

A presentation about the Energy Dashboard was given at the Behavior Change / Energy Efficiency Conference on May 22, 2012: http://www.igencc.org/bhc12.speakers.

In 2012, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was recognized at the Gold Level in the Illinois Campus Sustainability Compact.

Staff gave a guest lecturer presentation to the Urban Planning / Civil Engineering UP430 class, regarding active transportation programs; met with a student team from Professor Rockett’s renewable energy course to discuss rooftop solar opportunities on campus; and gave a guest lecturer presentation to an Architecture class about the iCAP and sustainability initiatives on campus.

The Request for Proposal for a Solar Farm Public-Private Partnership on South Farms resulted in 12 proposals for the Solar Farm.  The technical evaluation committee worked on reviewing and scoring each proposal, and provided some clarification questions to the UI Purchasing contact person.  The committee will meet again in May to identify a preferred vendor.

F&S and the Beyond Coal student group portion of Students for Environmental ConcernS (SECS) held a joint celebration at Abbott Power Plant to recognize the efforts that have been made to reduce coal usage for campus.  There was a discussion about the additional projects F&S is pursuing and the financial decision makers for campus.

The SSC bike parking award is for $225,000 to install approximately 1,000 new bike parking spaces on existing concrete throughout campus. 

The SSC and the Illini Union agreed to support improvements at the southwest corner of the Illini Union, where there are existing “donut-hole” bike racks.  These will be removed over the summer and replaced with stainless steel U-loops.  Additionally, the F&S Grounds division has agreed to plant an additional tree in that area, which will increase shading for the bike parking.

Through Champaign County Bikes, the University has acquired 22 Varsity Bicycle Racks (which will hold a total of 44 bicycles) from Park-a-Bike in order to run a year-long pilot test of the racks. 10 of these racks will be installed for the year near the Union and the remaining 12 will be distributed in various high-visibility locations on and near campus, to be determined.

The graduate student working on sketches for the Campus Bicycle Network improvements has completed a majority of the campus owned pathways.  In some cases, this has included site visits to specific areas, with the Transportation Coordinator and the Landscape Architect for campus.

The SSC-supported Bike Sharing Feasibility Study student intern held a review meeting with the Bike Sharing Steering Committee.  The report is substantially complete and will be available this summer.  As part of the Feasibility Study, F&S released a bike sharing survey to the campus and surrounding community in late March, and accepted responses throughout April. The Survey received 1,168 responses from students, staff, faculty, retirees, visitors and members of the community. F&S is working with the UI Bikes section of Engineering 315, Learning in the Community (LINC) course, to analyze the data from the survey responses. Students from the LINC course also conducted a focus group with undergraduate students in conjunction with the survey in order to dive deeper into the topic of bike sharing with focus group participants.

In preparation for the third annual C-U Bike to Work Day (BTWD), staff organized fundraising, publicity, volunteers, bike stations’ supplies, registration, and riders’ incentives. The University led the efforts to organize BTWD this year, in partnership with local governments and other agencies. BTWD is an opportunity to encourage and support new bicycle commuters across C-U, including students, staff and faculty of the University, in an effort to create a mode shift toward more bike commuting and less automobile commuting.

SSC granted a funding request from the Campus Bike Project (CBP) which will allow the current part-time hours of the CBP shop manager, a University employee reporting directly to F&S, to be expanded to full-time. The grant also includes a small stipend for part-time student employees to help staff the CBP.  Sustainability Staff have been working with CBP representatives to develop the position description and conduct a job search, which attracted over 30 applications. The search committee, which included sustainability staff from F&S, as well as Bike Project volunteers and members, is currently in the process of narrowing the pool down to select a qualified candidate.