EPA Waste Management Webinar Presentation Report
EPA Webinar Report by UIUC Facilities & Services Waste Management Intern, Shreya Mahajan.
EPA Webinar Report by UIUC Facilities & Services Waste Management Intern, Shreya Mahajan.
The 2022 Campus Sustainability Celebration was a huge success! Thank you to all who participated! The PowerPoint presentation is attached, and the agenda for the event was as follows:
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.
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.
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:
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
iSEE Director, Madhu Khanna, sent out the seven iCAP Team charge letters for the 2022-2023 academic year (attached).
"Thank you once again for your service in helping to make the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a more sustainable campus. Attached is your charge letter for the 2022-2023 academic year with an outline of your campus sustainability duties as part of the iCAP Team. We look forward to your positive and impactful contributions."
Tyler Swanson worked with Meredith Moore during the summer of 2022 as a campus sustainability intern and developed the attached report outlining recommendations to improve UIUC STARS score.
Illinois ranked #44 in the Princeton Review's Top 50 Green Colleges list in 2022.
Top 50 Green Colleges | The Princeton Review
Green Rating Methodology | Green Colleges | The Princeton Review
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.
The Spring 2022 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:
Greetings Colleagues,
Attached, please find the Spring 2022 edition of iQ, our quarterly update. You will see that in this six-page pdf recapping the recent semester, we had plenty of news and updates from our research, education, events, and campus sustainability fronts.
But the work did not end there! Since the semester ended, we have had two other exciting announcements:
For more up-to-date news from iSEE, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.
Best wishes for a healthy and productive summer,
Madhu
Meredith Moore (iSEE) and Sydney Trimble (F&S) presented at the EPA Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Web Academy Webinar: University Best Practices in Waste Stream Management on 4-28-22. The presentation is attached.
Click here for more information.
"This webinar session will highlight best practices in university materials and waste stream management, including reduce, reuse, and recycle principles. Participants will learn about the excellent waste reduction programs at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Colorado State University, and The Ohio State University. Our speakers will share proven practices that help colleges and universities minimize waste generation and promote materials reuse. Attendees will also learn about ongoing university case studies and projects involving waste characterization as well as other programs assisting campuses in achieving sustainability goals."
These iSEE representatives presented an update of key efforts underway for the iCAP 2020: iSEE Associate Director for Campus Sustainability Dr. Jennifer Fraterrigo, iSEE Associate director for Education and outreach Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Sustainability Programs Manager Meredith Moore, F&S Associate Director for Sustainability Morgan White, and Sustainability Academic Advisor Eric Green. the key topics were:
The following links were also sent to be shared with the committee:
Also, if anyone is interested in participating in one of the Topical iCAP Teams, as a faculty member, please let us know. The topics are listed on the iCAP Portal at https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/topical-icap-teams.
Co-presidents Owen Jennings, Maiah Caise, Jack Reicherts, and Maria Maring are excited to embark upon their second semester as SSLC leadership together. The primary goals of the semester include:
Bolster collaboration between environmental RSOs on UIUC campus. The SSLC hopes to work with Student Affairs to incentivize participation with the SSLC, using the University of California Berkely’s Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) as a template. Weekly board meetings and monthly full meetings will continue per usual.
Bolster collaboration between other Illinois schools like University of Illinois Chicago, University of Illinois Springfield, and Illinois State University. Both SECS and ISG may play significant roles in this relationship-building. The SSLC has already been in contact with Illinois State.
Host Earth Month events. The SSLC already began communication with the Illini Union Green Team last semester to begin planning events like Green Quad Day and a movie night on the Quad. Organizations like SECS, Red Bison, and iSEE that have been historically active in Earth Month events will be essential in these processes.
Write SSLC bylaws. The Council has not previously had bylaws, and they are absolutely essential to moving forward in an organized and successful fashion.
Continue to monitor the fight for divestment from fossil fuels. This iCAP Objective has caused copious political strife between students and administrators. Because divestment continues to be a hot topic, the SSLC will continue to listen to student concerns.
The SSLC underwent many changes under the new leadership of co-presidents Owen Jennings, Maiah Caise, Jack Reicherts, and Maria Maring. The board experimented with the mission and niche of the SSLC, ultimately establishing that the organization shall act as a medium of communication between student groups and the administration. The organization will also be the primary host of the annual Student Sustainability Summit in October, touting – among other interdisciplinary events – Green Quad Day, Sustainable Student Research Symposium, and Tuesday Talks at Bevier Cafe.
This Summit was the Council’s most noteworthy accomplishment this semester. The SSLC collaborated with: Red Bison, Outdoor Adventure Club, the Department of Agriculture and Biological Engineering, the Sustainable Student Farm, the Pilot Processing Plant, Grand Prairie Friends, the F&S Solar House, Stop Line 3 CU, Students for Environmental Concerns, Prairie Rivers Network, and the Student Sustainability Committee. This myriad of events had varying levels of attendance. The SSLC leadership learned two primary lessons from the inaugural Student Sustainability Summit: first, quality over quantity in terms of events; and second, planning well ahead of time is absolutely essential in order to adequately advertise each event. If you attended or co-hosted any Summit event, and you would like to let the SSLC board know your feedback, please fill out this form. The current SSLC leadership looks forward to how future leadership will expand upon the Summit.
Another noteworthy accomplishment of the SSLC this semester was action following the publication of the Campus Admin Manual’s Expressive Activity Policy draft. Students were largely emotional about the policy’s stringent punishment for demonstrations on campus, so the SSLC – in conjunction with SECs and the SSC – wrote a letter to Chancellor Jones demanding that the policy more closely align with the student body’s needs. As of January 2022, the SSLC has received no reply from the Office of the Chancellor.
Co-presidents Maria Maring and Owen Jennings spoke at the Campus Sustainability Celebration and Sustainability Council meeting, respectively, on the topic of divestment. Though SSLC leadership was merely prompted to give basic updates at these meetings, they utilized the face-to-face opportunity with campus administrators to voice student concerns about completing iCAP Objective 9.1: Fully divest from fossil fuel companies by FY25.
In a first, the SSLC and general members participated in the Homecoming Parade. Roughly a dozen students marched with divestment-related signs. The SSLC hopes to expand Homecoming attendance next year.
The SSLC revived its dormant Facebook account (@sslcuiuc) and newly established an Instagram account (@uiuc_sslc). On the latter, the SSLC made 40 posts and gained 227 followers. The Facebook account has 93 followers; engagement on this platform is much less. The SSLC also made a linktree and a Google calendar to which other RSOs can sync. That way, all events from all different orgs are all conveniently on one calendar. This joint calendar is still undergoing troubleshooting, and it is not yet available for public viewing.
Amidst these new endeavors, the SSLC held full membership meetings roughly once a month, as did the previous leadership. One recurring issue was lack of attendance and engagement. Leadership held many conversations with both general members and staff advisors about how to increase the efficacy of the Council, but no good solution was found. The SSLC will continue to hold these monthly meetings and brainstorm about how to increase engagement throughout the upcoming spring semester.
The SSLC board met weekly. If you have any questions or feedback, please contact the Council at sslc-chair@mx-illinois.edu.
The following sustainability topics will be added to the new student campus tours!
The Sustainability Sub-Council met on November 10, 2021 in preparation of the Sustainability Council meeting. The primary agenda items included:
The slide deck is attached with meeting minutes to follow.
What do giant grasses, micro grids, deep wells, and hydrogen-powered buses all have in common? They are all part of a clean energy future that is being imagined, created, and tested here at UIUC. The breadth of our energy research portfolio, across all of the campus and the broader C-U community, is truly impressive. Here are just a few examples:
Solar Farm 2.0 will soon be home to a newly awarded, $10M project led by Madhu Khanna to optimize the design of "Agrivoltaics," or fields with both crops and solar panels to maintain crop production, produce renewable energy, and increase farm profitability. A few miles to the east, the Energy Farm boasts extensive test plots to study how to grow and use plants as biofuel. The farm is using a biomass boiler to replace propane as the fuel source for its main research greenhouse. The Energy Farm is also home to one of dozens of geothermal wells on campus that are helping scientists like Yu-Feng Lin develop better geothermal systems, while on the north side of campus, the new Campus Instructional Facility is heated and cooled with a state-of-the art geothermal system. Nuclear power is expected to play an important role in meeting our campus ICAP goals, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hosted a hearing last week to seek input on our plans to site a next-generation, micronuclear reactor near the Abbott Power Plant. Integrating renewable energy sources into the power grid presents unique challenges, and Illinois power system researchers, including Alejandro Domínguez-García, are working to develop microgrid technology to address issues of reliability and resilience. Meanwhile, researchers such as Petros Sofronis are working on a bold new vision for national leadership in the emerging hydrogen economy. (It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but the CUMTD just launched two hydrogen-powered, zero-emission buses—the first in the state!)
There is only one way I can wrap up a message about our campus energy research: The future looks bright, indeed!
Sincerely,
Susan
Attached is the presentation for the Campus Sustainability Celebration, held on 10/20/21.
Attached is the presentation compiled by Jenna Schaefer, a student on the Zero Waste iCAP Team, for the Campus Sustainability Celebration!
Attached is the PowerPoint compiled by students on the Engagement iCAP Team for the Campus Sustainability Celebration!
The attached presentation was prepared by the students of the Energy iCAP Team for the Campus Sustainability Celebration!
All are invited to the 2021 Campus Sustainability Celebration and appreciation event! Meet and network with your peer sustainability advocates and hear about exciting campus sustainability progress! Since the event is in person, please be prepared to wear a mask and show your Safer Illinois app or equivalent status. If you can't make it in person, watch the livestream on YouTube! >>>
October 20, 1–4 pm • National Center for Supercomputing Applications lobby, 1205 W. Clark St., Urbana
Julie Wurth • Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment