The following email was sent to the iCAP Teams:

Hello iCAP Teams,

Thank you again for serving on these important campus sustainability committees, and for your commitment to helping the university achieve the objectives in the Illinois Climate Action Plan.  As promised in the charge letters you received, we are attaching the Key Priorities Document here.  The attached document includes a section for each iCAP Team, with two parts in each section: Priority areas and in progress iCAP Portal projects.

1. Priority Areas

In order to help our campus move from STARS Gold to STARS Platinum, we have identified priority areas where our university can potentially improve. iSEE’s summer intern Tyler evaluated the latest UIUC STARS report and identified example case studies from STARS Platinum schools.  Tyler’s report is online at “Report on Improving UIUC STARS Score.” The priority areas also include topics for potential recommendations that have been brought up in previous discussions with the campus sustainability teams.  One example of this is the current efforts to reduce plastic waste on campus.

Many prior iCAP team members have expressed a desire for guidance on appropriate topics for recommendations, so we are providing this guidance to assist your team with focus areas for development of recommendations.  We encourage you to investigate these ideas with gusto; reach out to people at other schools to learn more about the ideas and contact people on our campus who would have a stake in the project (“stakeholders”) to understand how it could fit into our campus. You should also review the recommendation template to see the information that needs to be completed when you submit a recommendation to the iCAP Working Group. 

1. In progress iCAP Portal projects

The iCAP Portal has over 900 projects and contains information about our campus sustainability efforts, going back as far as 2003. The information is primarily entered by members of the iCAP Teams, the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), and a few volunteers.  We are requesting your assistance to get updates on some of the projects that are listed as “In Progress.”  For each of the projects listed in the attached file, please answer the following questions:

• Who is the current contact person? The project records on the iCAP Portal may provide past contacts, and your team members may have relevant information.
• Is the project completed? If not, what is the current status of the effort?
• What changes are needed on the iCAP Portal project page content? Pictures would be particularly nice to be able to share on the Portal.

We are very excited about this coming year, and we want to support you in any way necessary.  Please reach out to any of us at any time.

Thank you,

Morgan, Jen, and Meredith

The Transportation iCAP team met on Friday, September 2nd from 4:00 - 5:00 P.M. to review the charge letter provided by iSEE and select a team Chairman and Vice-Chairman.

Meeting Minutes and slides are attached to this update, a link to a recording of the meeting is provided below:

https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_cvg9yq1q

All, This week we begin being open the full week (minus Monday for Labor Day). Hopefully we’ll be able to better help folks, as we’ve had lines for stand time most days during our M/W/F schedule.

We’re out of bikes but have been selling a good number of memberships. I’ll be out on Thurs/Fri but my staff will cover.

We’ve taken a step back technologically and had good results: Printed membership forms are easier for folks to fill out, take less time, and we have more clipboards than computers which means we can get people working on their bikes sooner. Manually entering the forms afterwards and the environmental toll are worth it during these super-busy times.

I’ll do some prep on my end for BTWD and LTN next week.

The numbers:

Visitors: 102
Sales: $1,865
Bikes (refurb): 4 for $655
Memberships: 24 for $720
Tires/tubes: 22 for $144

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator

The four co-presidents of the Student Sustainability Leadership Council: Danika Ford, Maiah Caise, Owen Jennings, and Jack Reicherts, led the TED Talk: Eco-Edition Series on 8/31/22. Together, we watched a TED Talk by Michael Cyr: "stop thinking recycling is sustainable". Attached is their presentation. 

During the summer of 2022, Tyler Swanson (iSEE intern) worked with Meredith Moore and developed the attached report on sustainability in athletics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.