I am excited to share the news that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has now been recertified at the Gold ranking in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). This is the sixth time we have received a Gold STARS rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This achievement represents our ongoing commitment to making sustainable change on campus. The updated 2025 report builds on previous reporting and helps hold us accountable for continuous improvement toward our sustainability goals.

The reporting process required a huge amount of data collection from across different campus units, covering our academic programs, orientation and training programs, energy and emissions, landscape management, transportation systems, administrative policies, and much, much more. I would like to give special thanks to Codie Sterner at SSIB for helping to lead the data collection process, and to our student interns Jenna Schaefer and Lucy Zhou for their invaluable contributions.

If you are receiving this email, it is because you helped provide key data and insights during this process. We sincerely appreciate your efforts and contributions to our campus sustainability efforts – completing this report and achieving this result would not have been possible without you!

Best,

Miriam

Miriam Keep
Sustainability Programs Coordinator

Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE)

Following are the notes from our meeting with Housing about their potential Fleet Management Plan. The meeting took place on 6/13/2025 at 9 a.m.

Attended by - Sarthak Prasad, Shawn Patterson, Matt Brown, Aaron Lewis, Jessica Hauserman

• We did introduction
• Jessica is the Office Manager
• We are looking for a single point of contact
• Not reinvent the wheel - not dictate
• What are we trying to do?
• 12 year replacement plan
• What is the useful life of the vehicle
• Fuel consumptions, idle time,
• Conversations about what would be the correct path
• Right-sizing the application
• We need to purchase a vehicle - what type of vehicle can be purchased
• Matt Brown -
  • They make some purchases of heavier duty trucks based on what the tasks are, the weight of those things
  • Some small transit vehicles
    • Ford transit
  • They are looking for a huge number of things
  • Availability, right sizing, - have some issues with that
  • They are retiring 20 year old vehicles or more
  • They are finally out of pre-2000s vehicles this FY
  • They are now updating
• How we might interact with these goals= planned rotation vs force rotations
  • Deterioration of these vehicles
  • Shawn -
    • The prices have skyrocketed
    • Digging deep - if we have a process in place.
    • If this is the goal, we can do what we can
    • What is the most feasible thing. The university is not going give us so much money to buy whatever we want
    • Housing is the first department we are reaching out
    • Same or similar fleet as F&S
    • We can share our expertise
    • Build a group and plan as to what can be done to improve iCAP goals
• Looking to identify a contact person
  • Start off with Matt Brown and then direct conversations to other departments
  • Various fleets (4)
    • Facilities and Maintenance
    • Building services
    • Student Affairs Technology for Housing
    • Dining - Dell
  • Jessica has helped with costs and ownership of vehicles
    • To maintain or to fuel
    • There is data
  • If the iCAP wants to put a number before we rotate
    • Put a high number, like 15 years.
    • Some vehicles are used less
    • Vehicle by vehicle basis
• Aaron -
  • Has it ever been discussion - drive thru car was on campus to remove debris and gunk - to improve the life?
    • Shawn -
      • Frame - Rust or something
      • Parts are no longer available for that vehicles
      • Undercarriage -
        • $100k to get the equipment
    • Deterioration of the body
  • Rust and under carriage - vehicles deteriorate
• Next Step
  • List and come up with an operation plan
  • For one of the fleet operation or all 4 fleet? Evolving plan
  • Create a Teams Channel
  • Give them a skeleton plan to give to Housing
    • They will fill in what they can do - Based on the F&S Green Fleet Plan
    • The objectives we came up with were through NAFA and based on F&S fleets
  • Maybe a follow up in the end of July 2025
• Matt asked about Idle time sensor
  • GPS sensors that we operate with
  • Not every vehicle is the same
  • External GPS system
• Idle Times are related to Fuel Consumption
• Matt and his team will get a shot on the plan and get back to us
• Housing fleet is at a certain level - swap one for one
  • Very occasional and sporadic that they add a vehicle
  • They can commit to not adding to the fleet

This past week, Sarthak and interns Emily and Max have been working on tagging bicycles on campus for the abandoned bicycles project. Today, the tagging portion of the abandoned bicycles project was completed. Across all blocks of campus, 665 bicycles were tagged. After June 30th, bicycles that do not have their orange tags removed will be collected.

A smaller frame gray bicycle was recently acquired. It was taken to Campus Bike Center for small repairs by Sarthak and a bike lock was also purchased. 

Emily and Sarthak have started tagging bicycles and recording their coordinates using ArcGIS Field Maps in the 10 (near the F&S building) and 11 (Ikenberry Quad) blocks of campus.

Work order #11257249 was created for for the Sign Shop to create and install seven (7) 18'x24' metal signs to be installed on each of the seven shipping containers for bicycle storage. These containers are located between the Abbott Chilling Plant and the Personnel Building. Attached is a png of the sign design for shipping container 1.

The iCAP Topical Teams and iCAP Working Group were provided the following status update for the iCAP 2025 development process.

Hello iCAP teams,

Thank you again for all that you did to support the Illinois Climate Action Plan this year.  I’m writing to share a quick update on the development of the iCAP 2025, and let you know the next steps we are taking.

Miriam Keep has developed a schedule for the creation of the actual iCAP 2025 document, which I’m summarizing here.  During the next few weeks, Miriam will be drafting the 2-4 page chapters using the information your teams have provided, and I’ll send them to the iCAP chairs and a few key stakeholders for a technical review. Then iSEE and F&S will work together to complete the draft document for formal approval by the Chancellor (or Interim) this fall.  The intention is to do a grand release during the Campus Sustainability Celebration, which is typically in October.

If you have any questions about this process, please feel free to contact me, Jen, Miriam, or your team’s chair.  I’m excited to see the next version of the iCAP!

Thanks,

Morgan

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the May 2025 Buyer's Share amounts by the hour, totaling 1,878 Megawatt hours.The May 2025 Buyer's Share Report is attached below.