Energy Conservation and Building Standards SWATeam Recommendation Summary:
Illini Lights Out – Friday April 15th 6pm – 7pm

Summary: Student volunteers switched off lights in 8 buildings around the Main Quad, counted the number of lights and the room number on a tally sheet and closed any windows left open. Students were given free rein on how to document lights in rooms (some chose to write the rooms with lights off and on, some just the rooms with lights on) and which (unlocked) rooms to enter – as long as they recorded the number of lights switched off. After returning their tally sheets they filled out a short survey and enjoyed some pizza.

Student volunteers: 22 students from 18 different majors, from ALL academic years.

Student Feedback: Fun & positive environment. Advertise more. Recruit more people. Do it more often. Develop consistent counting metric.

Suggested Buildings: Armory, NSRC, Illini Union, Psychology Building, South Quad, ALL.

Conclusions/Implications:

• Students keen to participate again – more advertising = more participants.
• Significant room to expand initiative across campus: north/south quad.
• Not all buildings can be audited due to sensitive information or lack of classrooms.
• Specific rooms/ numbers and number of lights should be provided in future to simplify volunteer instructions and tally sheets. However, many accessible hallway lights were switched off during this event.
• Partnership with local restaurant would make this more cost effective to run and maintain.
• Better education of the importance of keeping windows closed to maintain heating/cooling efficiencies needed – especially when weather transitions from cool to warm. 
• Directly addresses iCAP Chapter 2. Objective 4: Engage and incentivise the campus community in energy conservation.

Illini Lights Out is an effective and cost efficient way to help with energy conservation efforts and engages students on campus!!

see file

The SWATeam continued the discussion about its Big Picture Recommendation for energy conservation regarding the Campus Master Plan.  Students reported their findings on what undergraduates want to see on energy displays in campus buildings.  Smaller updates on fume hood efficiency efforts and Illini Lights Out followed.  Green Labs Initiative intern Natalie Pelekh attended this meeting to present her research on Green Labs programs at other schools and to discuss factors that need consideration before launching our own Green Labs program.

Illini Lights Out was further developed in terms of advertising and the logistics of the event.  Olivia Harris from iSEE attended to participate in the continued logo contest discussion.  A key aspect of this contest is clearly defining what we're looking for in this logo and exactly what it will be encompassing.  The contest may be pushed back to Fall 2016.

Ben McCall attended this ECBS SWATeam meeting to join in on the discussion of objectives 2 and 3 under the ECBS section of iCAP 2015.  A consultation group will be formed to help in recommending potential objective 2 strategies.  The main issue is that there is no "one size fits all" standard for all campus buildings.  Various strategies of creating a feedback loop for reducing energy usage were also discussed with regards to objective 3.  Next meeting is set for Tuesday, March 15.

The ECBS Objective 4 Subcommittee met on Tuesday, February 23 to continue discussions on campus engagement in sustainability.  Paul Foote attended and gave an update on Eco-Olympics and his plans to continue the program this year, with some changes.  Work on the Green Labs Initiative is progressing.  A continued discussion of potential recommendations to send to the iWG led to the idea of a pilot energy audit by student volunteers on April 15.  However, the issue of raising awareness for and branding campus sustainability remains.

The ECBS Objective 4 Subcommittee held its first meeting on Tuesday, February 9.  Discussion revolved around the issue of tying all existing campus engagement programs (e.g., ECIP, Certified Green Office Program, revolving loan fund, etc.) together into one campus-wide brand.

Energy Conservation & Building Standards SWATeam meeting minutes for December 9.

The major agenda items were about the Energy Dashboard Project and a presentation by Scott Willenbrock from the Energy Generation, Purchasing, Distribution SWATeam.