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 iCAP Teams and iCAP Working Group gathered for the annual kickoff event on 8-24-22. Current members attended to learn about the iCAP 2020, the role of the teams and members, and meet sustainability staff and fellow team members. The presentation is attached and the recording can be found here. 

Heidi Leuszler (Parkland University) and Eliana Brown (Illinois Extension) led an overview of the National Green Infrastructure Certification Program. Click here to view and download the recording. 

We had a great iCAP Team and iCAP Working Group Kickoff on 9/16/21! During the event, we heard from iSEE Interim Director, Dr. Madhu Khanna, went through the team rosters, iCAP Procedures, iCAP 2020 and progress made thus far, and lastly summarized other resources that sustainability advocates should be aware of. 

The iCAP Teams and iCAP Working Group are instrumental in helping campus advance and achieve our sustainability goals and we look forward to a great year!

The presentation is attached and the recording is found here. 

Brent Lewis provided the following update to the Land and Water iCAP Team:

One of the iCAP objectives under Land and Water (4.2.1) involves a service learning project to better understand our historic and current tree canopy percentages.  I just wanted to reach out and say that I’ve worked it out with our NRES faculty member, Jennifer Fraterrigo that she will work with her students in the fall to prepare this analysis.  As our last 2 tree surveys were generally on 2008 and 2018, they will take a look at those years and put together an analysis.  Over this time, I believe we lost between 10-12% of our tree inventory on campus.  It is my thought that this loss in older trees would have meant a much larger loss in actual tree canopy.  This would generally equate to a loss of habitat, increase in ambient temperatures and increase in rainwater that would otherwise have been used by the trees.  I have been wanting to get a handle on the loss as I push for resources to replace what we had, as well as enhance what we will have for the future.