On November 17th, the Energy iCAP Team met to discuss student, staff, and chair priorities for forming new recommendations. The team decided on starting to develop three different recommendations in the future:

(1) Requiring campus buildings to comply with state Energy Code Compliance;

(2) Encouraging labs on campus to save energy;

(3) Educating students in residence halls about reducing energy consumption.

Agenda, meeting minutes, and chat log are attached.

Ryan Day submitted a proposal to the SSC for $70k in support of adding solar over the parking at Willard Airport. See attached files. 

Sinead Soltis (F&S intern) presented an overview of the SmartWay Program to Travis Molitor of F&S Stores and Receiving. Collaboration on the topic will hopefully include affiliate recognition on their new website, along with physical signage outside of PPSB Stores & Receiving. In addition to this recognition, Travis plans to discuss with his staff about our status in this program. 

See the attached pdf for presentation slides.

Also, Travis recommends reaching out to Housing Storekeepers and Chem. Sciences contacts.

The following email was sent on November 16, 2020 to the RLF Selection Committee:

Revolving Loan Fund Selection Committee,

I want to thank everybody again for your participation in the previous selection process. With the completion of that vote, the RLF fund source still has approximately $300,000+ available and a time sensitive submission from DIA has been received recently. The project being submitted is for a Retro-Commissioning (RCx) effort at the State Farm Center. RCx efforts see great results under normal operating conditions, but with the pandemic, significant savings could be realized now that many events are being cancelled and the facility is not being utilized at its full capacity. The request is for $250K and could see a payback of less than 2 years. Please see the attached document for more information.

We don’t necessarily need to score this project, all we need is a majority decision (yes or no) to approve.

I ask that you please reply with your individual yes (in support of funding) or no (decline funding approval) votes before November 26, 2020 (10 days away).

... Thank you again for your continued support of the RLF program.

See the attached file to read details about the Retro-Commissioning (RCx) for the State Farm Center.

The DOE has awarded $25M to a three-year project, led by Kevin O'Brien at the Prairie Research Institute, for the design of a next-generation power plant that "combines multiple techniques to both reduce emissions and capture and re-use carbon dioxide." -- from: https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1950450895.html 

OBrien and co-principal investigator Mohamed Attalla, director of U of I Facilities & Services, and ISTC project manager Les Gioja lead the project, providing combined expertise in power generation technologies, clean-energy generation, and large-scale construction. -- from: https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/7447/1913312422

Map the System 2021 Social Innovation Challenge

Call for individuals and teams to participate in Map the System 2021, a competition that challenges students to explore a social or environmental issue using systems thinking and to identify new levers for change. Gain insight for social ventures and pitch ideas for cash prizes and a chance to compete in Global Final. Sign up to receive updates about info sessions, workshops, and key deadlines.

Valeri Werpetinski • Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Gies Business

 This opportunity is available online.

Single-Use Face Covering Recycling

Ready to throw away your used disposable face coverings? Approximately 50 collection boxes are on campus to help you recycle these face coverings. The program is free thanks to the Student Sustainability Committee. See this list of participating facilities and locations: https://go.fs.illinois.edu/singleusemask. Questions and requests, contact recycling@illinois.edu. 

Morgan White • Facilities & Services

Past Project Based Learning students reached out to Tim Bannon at Willard Airport to propose adding solar carports over the parking lot.

The Engagement SWATeam met on Friday, November 6 to formulate and condense potential recommendations in addressing Chapter 7 Objectives. Below are a list of current proposed objectives and the associated meeting minutes:

• New ways to support student environmental organizations
• Using Sustainability Training (https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/1_poty17ok) as a way to get feedback from students, staff, and faculty about their views on sustainability on our campus and to promote engagement
• Creating sustainability-focused GivePulse channel
• Routine and regular (quarterly) Massmail by campus leaders at all levels in support of sustainability initiatives
• Ensure all professionally focused degree programs provide students with an understanding of the consequences of climate change and the goal of living sustainably, as these matters pertain to the profession in question
• Sustainability book of the month 

The attached proposal is for funding from the Revolving Loan Fund to do RCx at the State Farm Center. This project is expected to cost $250,000 and pay for itself in energy savings within two years of completion. 

Evan DeLucia will present the AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture on November 19. The talk, Rethinking American Agriculture: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Production, will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Rattan Lal, the 2020 World Food Prize Laureate.

The College of ACES recently announced a gift of aerial imagery, two multispectral agricultural data sets valued at $1.5M, from Aerial Agronomy, Inc. The gift will be "used in teaching and research, including efforts to estimate soil health and carbon flux from agricultural land in the Midwest."

-- from https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1514117041.html

The Fall 2020 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:

Dear Colleagues,

Attached, please find attached the Fall 2020 “iQ” – the quarterly update from the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).

It has been two months since I became interim director of ISEE.  It has been exciting to see ISEE bring in multimillion-dollar research grants, launch a new research initiative in regenerative agriculture, and help coalesce sustainable agriculture research on our campus during this period.

Our Certificate in Environmental Writing has engaged students in making insightful contributions to a new issue of Q Magazine. We have also expanded our opportunities for education and scholarly discourse with several online events, including those on nuclear energy and geothermal energy research.

We formally launched the new Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP 2020) on Oct 20, 2020. This ambitious plan is the result of the hard work of campus sustainability folks who worked hand-in-hand with Facilities & Services and incorporated the vision of hundreds of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members into a plan for the next five years and beyond — all the way to carbon neutrality no later than 2050!

I am so grateful to Evan Delucia for his efforts over the first seven years as the first director of our Institute. He has left iSEE as a vibrant part of the Illinois community, and I am working with our outstanding ISEE staff to expand upon the work already begun — as evidenced in this six-page update.

Please take a quick look at those updates and more in “iQ.” For more regular news, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.

Wishing you a successful end to the fall semester,

Madhu