Dear SWATeam Members,

Attached please find what we're calling version 2 of the 2015 iCAP. This is a mostly complete document that represents a synthesis of all of your teams' contributions into a consistent format, together with some additions from the iCAP Working Group and its subcommittee the iCAP Drafting Committee.

We'd like to ask each of you to read through the entire document -- both so you have a good sense of the context your chapter is placed in, and also because you may well spot problems in other chapters. Please send any comments on other chapters to the relevant SWATeam (email addresses can be found in the headers of this message), or to me for chapters 1, 2, and 9.

We ask that each of your SWATeams discuss your chapters amongst yourselves, with any other relevant stakeholders on campus (for example, units that would be impacted by the recommendations), and also with your consultation group members (or folks who volunteered to serve on your consultation group).  Please especially note the comments and questions from iWG members and others that are noted in the file.  You should feel free to correct any errors we have introduced, and re-insert any important points we might have inadvertently omitted.  Please also take this opportunity to improve the flow of the language where needed, as we have not attempted to polish the language.

For consistency, please continue to use active verbs and "should"-type language for Objectives [which represent the items campus will hold itself accountable for], and use "could"-type language for Potential Strategies [which are to be considered as possible ways to meet the objectives, not as objectives themselves].

Finally, and this is a big one, we'd like to ask you to provide within your chapter a cost estimate for each recommendation, along with the estimated payback (if any) in either financial or emissions terms. 

These numbers, even if they are rough, will be incredibly useful to the Sustainability Council in evaluating the overall cost commitment of this plan, and also to iSEE and the administration as we prioritize campus efforts in response to the plan.  If there are certain things you need help in generating estimates for, please let me know and I'll try to get you in touch with folks who may be able to help.

We realize we are asking for a lot, and the timeline is also fairly short.  We really need to receive your revised chapters by January 24, so that they can be reviewed by the iCAP Working Group in time to go out for public comment in February.  That, in turn, is necessary so that we can secure Sustainability Council approval in March, and have the iCAP signed by the Chancellor before Earth Day.

We can discuss all of this in detail on Thursday morning, but I hope you'll have a chance to read through the document beforehand.

Thanks so much for all you have already done, and all you are doing to shape the future of our campus!

Cheers,

Ben

<<link to draft file>>

P.S. Yesterday we had the first meeting of the Sustainability Council (with the Chancellor, Vice Chancellors, Deans, et al.) and we received very good feedback on the work that you've all been doing!

--

Professor Benjamin J. McCall

Associate Director for Campus Sustainability Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus-sustainability@illinois.edu

Dear SWATeams,

The iCAP Drafting Committee is now in the process of synthesizing your chapters into a complete draft of the 2015 iCAP for review by the iCAP Working Group.  Once the iWG has reviewed it, we will share it with all of you to get your feedback as well.

If you have any further edits to your draft chapters, please submit them by the end of the day on Thursday.  Of course we would welcome additional comments after that deadline if your teams garner new insights, but those should be submitted as separate lists of bulleted comments rather than incorporated into your chapter (where they might get lost in our editing process).

Thanks for all of your hard work!

Cheers,

Ben

Dear SWATeam Members,

What a fantastic forum we had on Wednesday...great turnout and great discussion!  Thanks so much for all your hard work and for the nice presentations!

As a reminder, the iCAP Working Group has asked that each SWATeam provide a draft chapter for the iCAP by the end of this month (which is coming up fast on Friday).

The iWG is meeting this Thursday to begin discussing the drafts.  We will likely begin with Water and Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling, since we've already received those two.  [If other teams have sent me draft chapters, I must have misplaced them, so please remind me.]

The iWG is under a tight timeline to synthesize all of these drafts into a complete document by year's end (and we are hoping to include some public comment opportunities during that period), so I hope you will all be able to meet the October 31 deadline.  [If you need a little extra time, please let me know as soon as possible.]

Thanks again!

Ben

--

Professor Benjamin J. McCall

Associate Director for Campus Sustainability Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Dear SWATeam Members,

The iCAP Working Group (iWG) met today, and there are a few items I wanted to transmit to you.

1) Attached is the approved template that your teams can use to submit formal recommendations for policies, initiatives, or studies, as described in the charge letter you received yesterday.  The iWG meetings this fall are 9/25, 10/30, 11/20, 12/4, and 12/18.  In order for a recommendation to be considered at a particular iWG meeting, it would be best if you could submit it roughly 2 weeks before that meeting.

2) As a reminder, the charge letter asks that you update the spring reports on our campus progress towards existing iCAP goals to include Fiscal Year 2014 data.  While Evan's charge letter gave you a deadline of September 30, the iWG would be grateful if you might be able to submit these updated reports by September 22, so the iWG can review them at its September 25 meeting.

3) Also attached is a first rough outline for the 2015 iCAP; please take a look through and consider what we are asking each SWATeam to provide. 

At the end of the document are some thoughts about the key concepts of goals, objectives, and strategies that the iWG envisions as the core of the document.  Your suggested revisions to the iCAP are due by October 22, Campus Sustainability Day, on which representatives from each of your teams will lead a public discussion about the proposed goals, objectives, and strategies.

This is going to be a really exciting semester, as we chart the future for campus sustainability!  If you have any questions or concerns about the process, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks so much in advance for your efforts,

Ben

P.S. For ease of use and to keep iSEE staff in the loop, I'd appreciate it if you could use the aliases in this email's header

(swat-*@dib.illinois.edu) when communicating with your team.

In collaboration with Facilities & Services, iSEE is establishing six teams consisting of faculty, staff, and students to examine the six broad themes within the Illinois Climate Action Plan.  The teams are currently finalizing assessments of how the campus is doing in meeting its pre-2015 iCAP targets. 

In the near future, the SWATeams will transition into recommending concrete steps the campus should take to meet its iCAP targets, as well as developing suggested revisions to the iCAP.  A procedure is currently being finalized within the campus administration to evaluate and endorse SWATeam recommendations; more details should be available soon.

Each SWATeam, once fully populated, will have two faculty members (one serving as chair), two staff members, and two students.  Each team also has an iSEE intern serving as a "clerk" for the group.  In the near future, each SWATeam will also populate a "consultation group" of experts and stakeholders across campus to provide input and feedback to the SWATeam.

The current membership of the SWATeams (clerks shown in square brackets) is: