The following is an email sent by Betsy Ligget Richardson:

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well!

I am writing to share information regarding an upcoming stormwater conference on October 24th at the iHotel to see if you are interested in attending and if you could share the attached flyer with your staff and colleagues. The Illinois Green Infrastructure & Erosion Control Conference is hosted by the Champaign County Stormwater Partnership which the University, Facilities & Services, Safety & Compliance is a member.

The conference presenters this year are from the University of Illinois, the University of Illinois Extension Office, Penn State and the City of Peoria. We will also have a tour at Crystal Lake Park in Urbana following the presentations (MTD transportation available). 5 PDHs will be provided, along with breakfast and lunch!

We do not currently have a high registration count and hope to get more attendees registered this week to support our presenters. We have promoted a soft close registration date on October 10th . Registration will still be open after that, but we are asking attendees to register by Tuesday for the food order and table set up information needed.

Please sign up and share. Thanks in advance!

https://www.ccstormwater.org/2023-conference.html

Betsy

9 individuals from the Fab Lab on October 4, 2023.

MSE 489 class tour with Professor Daniel Shoemaker on October 3, 2023:

Hi, Steve. A News-Gazette Mailbag question for you:

"The University of Illinois has 2 large solar farms near Savoy.  How are they doing compared to expectations?  What percentage of the UofI power do they provide?  Are there any plans for more? If so ... where and when will they be built?"

(I rooted around a bit on the F&S energy/utility pages, and found a lot of info. Figured I'd best ask you, though, for the most current data.)

Thank you,

KR

------------------------

Hi Morgan/Mike/Tony,

Do we have updated FY23 data that can be shared to answer the question about current output of both arrays as it relates to expected performance and the percentage of electrical demand?

A similar question was answered in March 22', please see attached. I have addressed the second part with the below statement previously (let me know if there is any update is needed there as well or if that can be used again).

The university is evaluating the potential procurement of additional clean energy through an off-campus virtual power purchase agreement to meet Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) goals.

I would like to finalize the information and reply by Wednesday, October 4. Thanks for your help with this.

Steve B.

-------------------------

Steve,

Here is the information being requested.  I would like Rob to have a chance to comment on the last sentence before you respond.

Both Solar Farms are performing as expected.  Solar Farm 2.0 produced 99% of the vendor’s guaranteed production in the first two years of operation.  Solar Farm 1.0 produced 96% of estimated production over a two year period.  In FY23 the solar production was 6.6% of the campus electricity demand.  The University is considering another solar project, but the location and timing have not been determined yet.

Best,

Tony

------------------------

I would suggest that the final sentence state something such as: “While there are no immediate plans to add further solar capacity to the system, the University continues to evaluate and consider a multitude of carbon neutral energy solutions that would provide benefit to the Universities energy portfolio, including additional solar array capacity.”

Rob Roman

Dear Carrie,

Yilan Xu and Madhu Khanna shared your name with me. I am the Associate Director of Campus Sustainability for the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (iSEE), and I coordinate implementation of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) with colleagues at iSEE and F&S. I am writing today to invite you to join the Resilience iCAP Team.

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) outlines a path for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2050, and to work with our local communities to build resilience to climate change. There are 56 specific SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) objectives crafted in pursuit of this goal, grouped into eight key themes: Energy, Transportation, Land & Water, Zero Waste, Education, Engagement,  Resilience, and Implementation. You can find the list of objectives for all themes here.

The iCAP teams are organized around these seven themes and comprised of students, faculty, staff, and a paid student clerk who work together to advocate for the advancement of the iCAP objectives. The Resilience iCAP Team specifically works to bring campus and the surrounding communities (Champaign, Urbana, Savoy) together to address what must be done to prepare for vulnerabilities to extreme weather and other results of climate change. Given your experience in community-level disaster preparedness and mitigation planning, we think you would be an excellent resource for the Resilience Team.

Teams meet at least once per month during the academic year to develop recommendations aimed at advancing the iCAP objectives, which are then reviewed by the iCAP Working Group, co-chaired by Morgan White and myself. Recommendations that are positively reviewed by the iWG are either transmitted to units for implementation or brought to the Sustainability Council for further review. The role of staff members on teams is to share ideas and knowledge, and assist with information gathering in support of campus sustainability goals. Paid student clerks are responsible for logistics, including scheduling meetings, working with the team chair to set the agenda for meetings, note-taking, and reporting.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please let me know. I look forward to your response!

Best,

Jennifer

----------------------

Jennifer-

Are the meetings in person or virtual?  I would love to participate, but not sure I can be on campus every month.  I current serve on the ECOP(Extension Community of Practice) Program Area Team (PAT) for climate change.  This national Extension initiative is looking at broader research and programming goals, but there seems to be a good synergy between the two. If you could give me a little more information on when and how the team meets, I would like to be involved.

Carrie

---------------------

Carrie,

The team meets virtually and the first meeting is this Friday, October 6, at 9 AM on Teams. Morgan White is serving as the chair, Mirim Keep (iSEE) is the vice-chair, and Claire Keating is the student clerk. I copied Claire so that she can share the details for the upcoming meeting in the event that you are able to attend.

It would be great to have you on-board!

Best wishes,

Jennifer

The iCAP Engagement Team will be meeting this Thursday, 10/5, from 11am-12pm.

Attached is the agenda for the upcoming meeting.

Hi Pete,

Please send us the fuel data for FY22 and FY23, so we can do the GHG emissions for campus.

Thanks,

Morgan

--------------------

Below is the fuel breakdown for FY22 and FY23.

Thank you

Neil

Hi Jen and Morgan

Susan has asked me to give a short (less than 10 min) presentation at the next CRAWG/RIN meeting on Oct 6 on carbon credits.

Can you please send me the documentation you have recently created on the carbon credit history etc. I will start to put a few slides together and be in touch to discuss them with you.

Thanks

Madhu

-------------------



Hi Madhu,

I asked Miriam to start putting this information into a single document. It is not something we have created yet, but we will work on it this week.

Thanks,

Jen

____________

That is great. The key things I would like

The spreadsheet showing the timeline of the amount of carbon credits sold and value

A bit of history with second nature and ICAP to put on one slide 

A graph with the data on carbon reductions achieved on campus through ICAP 

A slide with key mechanisms through which we have achieved these reductions 

I am thinking  to put max 8 to 10 sides together  with a couple of slides on the 101 of why markets for carbon credits are appealing  and the role for credits and offsets for as opportunities for campus 

 I will start a slide deck with this and share this week. In the meantime if Miriam could put this info together that would be really helpful.  

Can we plan to meet next Monday for half hour to discuss the slides

Thanks

Madhu 

-------------------

Some specifics from Madhu (trailing email), and files I think will be helpful. Please focus on the following. Morgan, please weigh in on highlighted items and let me know if I missed anything.  - Jen

The spreadsheet showing the timeline of the amount of carbon credits sold and value – see attached.

A bit of history with second nature and ICAP to put on one slide – see attached

A graph with the data on carbon reductions achieved on campus through ICAP – portal has this, but we haven’t reported GHGs for past two years, so it is incomplete. Morgan – is there a better place to find these data?

A slide with key mechanisms through which we have achieved these reductions  - I think these are solar farms, geothermal projects, retrofitting, and other energy-related; Morgan please weigh in. Also, where can we find these data? 

----------------------

Hi Jen, Miriam, and Elizabeth,

I’m reviewing Jen’s email below.  Here are my comments.

1. The latest spreadsheet I have is attached.
   
   1. I updated it to reflect the receipt of the sales from the 1,000 sold in June. 
   2. I also updated the total for the end of FY23 in the portal at https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/carbon-credit-purchasing-program-c2p2-second-nature.

1. I agree the history in the campus MOU is the best resource for this.  There is more to the story, but it is kinda a convoluted mess that is probably not worth revisiting. (For example, there was an initial second nature MOU, then a revised version, then a new MOU with Second Nature…)

1. If there is time, I suggest Miriam contact Second Nature to confirm the official GHG report options to use in SIMAP. Then she can run the SIMAP reports for the past years and confirm what we have officially submitted per their perspective. 
   
   1. This is NOT in the C2P2 perspective, but in the Carbon Commitment perspective. 
   2. The baseline year is 2008, so we should verify our reporting for FY08 through present.
   3. We collected the previously submitted GHG reports that were done with the excel file “campus carbon calculator”. They are here: https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/greenhouse-gas-ghg-emission-reports.
   4. SIMAPs info is here: https://unhsimap.org/public/institution/193?show_years=goals_end&op=Change&graph_type=bar.

1. With the Solar Farm 3.0 discussions in 2021, F&S put together the attached summary of emission reduction efforts.  I’ve been meaning to update it, but haven’t had a chance yet.  I think it has enough for the slides Madhu is requesting.  Don’t use the results from this word doc, as they are outdated.  Also, we lost some of the advantages when the pandemic pricing, clean energy jobs act, and war in the Ukraine impacted energy costs.

Let me know if you have other questions.

Thanks,

Morgan

----------------------

Hi Morgan,

I hope you had some time to rest today and are feeling better!

Once you are back online, I wanted to follow up with a question on some figures from the Carbon Credits Funding spreadsheet you shared. Madhu would like to include the total revenue from carbon credit sales in her slides. She noted it looks like there may be discrepancies between different tabs in the spreadsheet. Looking at the latest spreadsheet you shared, “Carbon Credits Funding 20230927”, Jen and I noted there is one sale figure that seems to be inconsistent across tabs: the sale of 45,450 CCs to Bluesource @ $4.00/CC. In the attached spreadsheet, I’ve highlighted the relevant numbers in yellow. The first two tabs list the revenue for this sale as $183,981.60, but the third tab lists it as $181,800. I see that $181,800 is a direct calculation is 45,450*$4. I’m not sure where the slightly larger number came from. Do you have any idea, and do you know which figure we should use to calculate total revenue from CC sales?

Thanks,

Miriam
 

The last slide with offsets – was a bit confusing

Amy can send you the recording of the meeting for more details.

Thanks

Madhu

For those interested - 4pm climate lecture by Naomi Oreskes at Spurlock Museum this coming Monday.

(I’m starstruck, I read her journal articles during undergrad!)

Thank you,

Daphne

Hello Recycling Team,

iSEE had a sustainability table at the Housing Resident Advisor fair yesterday, and one concern was brought up about recycling at Illinois Street Residence Hall.  Apparently, a BSW was putting recyclables into the dumpster without blue bags.

Can you please check into it and let me and Jen (copied) know how to reply to the inquiry she got?

Thanks,

Morgan

-----------------------

Hi Jen & Morgan,

Sakshi and I will be meeting with Mark Kuehl from Housing next week to discuss BSWs’ consistent use of color-coded bags. Mark said this was something they had intended to implement previously, but the pandemic pushed back those plans.

Thank you,
Daphne

Done:

• New main map almost ready!
• Sent list of Places and list of Projects at each Place to Chad
  • View list of all Places
  • View list of all Places by Project

Discussion:

• Question about a TODO: "Collections page: Add image upload option". At a previous meeting we had this TODO, but what was the context? Was it to have a thumbnail for each Collection? Or a banner image? Or an image gallery?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
  • Replace map link in Highlights?
  • Need to finish Take Action page content
• SSC projects
  • May want to use this Archive of Funded Projects on old SSC site (2019) as a reference for showing SSC project info
  • Discussed using iCAP Portal projects for SSC projects page vs. maintaining own project pages directly on SSC website.
  • One possible challenge - SSC sometimes funds part of a project or provides funding for a period of time (e.g. 1 year) for a longer-term project, so only the project updates for that period of time are relevant, not all updates in perpetuity. How do we handle that?
  • Decided to start with map embed from Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects collection, then look at adding card-based project embed as well.
• Continue discussion of Fancy Page Layout (see the 4 mockups in the October 21, 2022 meeting notes)
• Continue discussion of improving site's aesthetics
• Archiving projects
  • Add "Archived" checkbox?
  • Add "Archived" to Visibility options?
  • Add "Archived" to Project Status options? (probably not - this mixes the status of the project itself with whether we still want it to show up on the site)
  • Remove from nested listings, still publicly available?

TODO:

• Main map:
  • Start with only Campus Tour locations shown (for now, start with Reporting Progress theme)
  • See CSU's campus map (Sustainability section) for inspiration
  • Smaller markers - working for Themes, not yet for Collections
  • Campus boundary, like ArcGIS Bicycle Map
  • Improve mobile filter?
  • Add "clear filters" option to show initial collection of projects
  • Add Full Screen option
  • Show only publicly visible Collections
• Homepage has extra padding on right side on mobile
• SSC project embedding: add category filtering options
• (long term goal) look into importing information from another source, e.g. SSC students without iCAP Portal access can put together info in a structured format for automatic import into iCAP Portal
• Look into Collection embedding again, à la Drawdown Solutions Library Sammy had found ("Filter by sector or area of action" section)
• Metric search/display:
  • Theme (via connected Project, i.e. Theme -> Project -> Metric)
  • Most recent updates as of: (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
  • (Internal only) Last updated before (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
• (Low Priority) Make column headers click-sortable on Projects by Project Status page
• Fancy project layout mockups - keep tweaking #3 to improve contrast
• Discuss metrics
  • Metrics with lots of data
  • Consider how to handle old metrics that no longer track new data. Archive somehow?
  • Fun with math (e.g. combining multiple metrics)
  • Calculated Metrics on Dev site

Cetacean will be taking place during the times listed below.

Deke Weaver: Cetacean

CETACEAN (The Whale) is the sixth interdisciplinary performance from Deke Weaver’s The Unreliable Bestiary—a lifelong project representing an endangered animal or habitat. CETACEAN has evolved into a juxtaposition of lo-fi effects, story, video, dance, sound design, and a colossal installation—a plastic sea with plastic whales. It’s gonna be a whale of a show!

September 28–October 2, 7:30 pm • University of Illinois Stock Pavilion, 1402 W Pennsylvania Ave, Urbana, IL 61801

Next Generation School visited for a tour (24 3rd graders, 4 adult chaperones) on September 28, 2023

Hello,

My name is Claire Sullivan, and I am reaching out as a representative from the Student Sustainability Leadership Council (SSLC). If you aren’t already familiar, the SSLC is a student-led body facilitating communications between campus sustainability and the student body, as well as relationships among environmentalist student groups on campus. One of our most famous events for engaging environmental entities on campus with one another is Green Quad Day.

Green Quad Day is scheduled for Wednesday, October 11th from 11 am - 3 pm on Anniversary Plaza. This is a great place to table for your organization, mingle with green RSOs, recruit prospective students, and learn about sustainability initiatives on campus. We invite each of you to fill out the form below to RSVP for a table at Green Quad Day. One RSVP per RSO, please! We encourage each RSO that RSVPs to include an interactive element at their table. Be creative!

Green Quad Day RSVP Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScRu6fPOGQQ3p-5Vg8rNL-a8VJEyNKq_jWZ4WlUeb4lM5jh2A/viewform?usp=sf_link 

Let us know if you have any questions or concerns about the event. We hope to see you at there!

Best,

The Student Sustainability Leadership Council