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  1. Transportation Emission files

    Associated Project(s): 

    Hello Transportation SWATeam,

    Per our discussion today, here are a couple of files and links.

    1. The most recent version of the Clean Air Cool Planet emissions calculator.
    2. Excerpts from the calculator as related to transportation emissions.  Note the tab called “data for average commute” explains the current math for the average commute distance. 
    3. 2007 mode-choice survey details: http://www.ihavemiplan.com/results/index.html
    4. 2011 mode-choice survey details: https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-update/mode-shift-update

    Both of the mode choice surveys were done in completely different ways and not exactly for the purpose we are using them.  It would probably be good to develop a survey specifically for this calculation purpose that can be administered by the UI in future years.

    Thanks,

    Morgan

  2. ISTC's helpful resources

    Associated Project(s): 

    Morgan, here’s the direct link to the resource I mentioned to you on the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) web site. The GLRPPR site is pretty extensive, with many “sector resources,” so I’ll save you the trouble of navigating through them.

    P2 Measurement & Calculators Sector Resource: http://www.glrppr.org/contacts/gltopichub.cfm?sectorid=143

    I don’t know if you were specifically interested in water-related calculators, or if you were using that as a hypothetical example. In any event, there are a few water-related calculators within the list at the above URL. US EPA’s WaterSense program provides a calculator for residential savings, if you replace existing fixtures with WaterSense labelled items. Seehttp://www.epa.gov/watersense/our_water/start_saving.html#tabs-3. This could be a resource to provide students or staff who ask you about such calculators, but be mindful (as you should with any “canned” calculator) of the assumptions made regarding things like utility costs, average number of gallons of water used per year, etc. (http://www.epa.gov/watersense/our_water/how_works.html#assumptions). This particular tool wouldn’t be useful for campus buildings; the Alliance for Water Efficiency provides some guidelines for calculations on school and university campuses:http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/Schools_and_Universities.aspx

    Dan Marsch mentioned resources for pre-rinse spray nozzles, which could be of interest in dining halls. Probably the best resource on best practices in this arena is the Food Service Technology Center (http://fishnick.com/). Their site includes a spray valve water cost calculator (http://fishnick.com/savewater/tools/watercalculator/) and a water leak cost calculator (http://fishnick.com/savewater/tools/leakcalculator/).

    Kishore mentioned the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Their site is at http://www.aceee.org/. He also mentioned EERE, the US DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Their site is athttp://energy.gov/eere/office-energy-efficiency-renewable-energy.

    Hope this helps,

    Joy

    Joy Scrogum

    Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist

    Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC; www.istc.illinois.edu

    Co-coordinator, Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI; www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu)

    Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR; www.glrppr.org)

    ISTC is a Division of the Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    217-333-8948; 1 Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, IL 61820; MC-676

     

  3. ink/toner cartridges - options

    Associated Project(s): 

    Several companies in the area provide a $2 credit for each ink cartridge returned.  These companies include Best Buy, Office max, and Office Depot.  ISTC does not get a credit for the toner cartridges but does return them to the company that they purchased them from. - Bart Bartels

  4. note from Billion Dollar Green Challenge

    Hi Morgan and Mike,

    It was great to speak with you both today and learn more about the revolving loan fund at UIUC. Your green revolving fund would be well-fit for the Billion Dollar Green Challenge.

    I have attached an information packet with all you need to know about The Challenge. If you want to sign-on to The Challenge, sign page 15. If UIUC has a $2 million revolving fund, it would cost $1,000 a year to be on The Challenge.

    I also attached the document with estimated lifespans for various energy efficiency equipment.

    I'll be in touch in early November to get you GRITS trial access, unless I hear from you sooner!

    Actually, Morgan, I see that you will be attending the Climate Leadership Summit hosted by Second Nature in Boston next month. Our office is actually down the hall from Second Nature. My boss, Mark Orlowski, will be at the Summit, and could always meet to answer questions. Also, if you want to meet up with me, I could meet by the conference as well. Just let me know if that would be helpful.

    Thanks,

    Shoshana

    --

    Shoshana Blank
    Senior Research Fellow &

    GRITS Project Lead

    Sustainable Endowments Institute
    A Special Project of
    Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

    18 Tremont Street, Suite 930

    Boston, MA 02108

    Office: (617) 528-0334

    shoshana@greenbillion.org

  5. Archived iCAP page information

    Associated Project(s): 

    The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pursuing development of a large-scale food waste composting facility on the University’s property, in order to compost food waste from University dining halls.  This interest is precipitated by the commitment made by the University in the 2010 Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP): “The University will commit to… a large‐scale food composting project by 2012.” The new facility will initially receive and process all acceptable pre- and post-consumer food waste from six dining halls on campus, as well as supplementary landscape waste as necessary carbon bulking material from Campus Grounds. In the future, if needed, the system may accept additional landscape waste from the city of Champaign as well as livestock bedding and other animal-related organic waste from the University’s Agricultural and Animal Sciences Departments. The finished product will provide rich compost material to agricultural projects on campus such as the Sustainable Student Farm, as well as to campus grounds and athletic fields.

    Background

    The University of Illinois is dedicated to composting across the board.  There are three main academic campuses at Urbana, Springfield, and Chicago and two medical campuses at Peoria and Rockford.  We are in communication with all of these sites about the future of composting at the University.  This is an exciting opportunity for the sustainability contacts to work together and support each other in a major sustainability initiative.  Additionally, the University Extension office has a long history of supporting sustainability and has numerous resources for composting operations that we can call upon as the project progresses. 

    In 2008, the Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging to become carbon neutral by the year 2050.  As part of this commitment, the University published “Illinois: A Climate Action Plan (iCAP)” in May 2010, describing several projects related to various aspects of campus sustainability.  This document is available online at http://sustainability.illinois.edu/iCAP.html.  

    The Procurement and Waste aspects of campus sustainability are highlighted on page five of the iCAP.  It states “The University will commit to a Zero Waste campus policy by 2012, a large-scale food composting project by 2012, and target an increase in the University’s waste diversion rate to 75 percent by 2020.”  The specific project is listed on page 34 item 4 under Agricultural targets, as “Incorporate a large-scale food composting project by 2012.” 

    The composting project also has significant support from campus leadership represented by Associate Chancellor Pradeep Khanna, Facilities & Services as represented by Tracy Osby the Waste Management Coordinator and Jack Dempsey the Executive Director, and the students as represented by the Student Sustainability Committee.  The Office of Sustainability works closely with Facilities and Services to assist with the various projects in the Climate Action Plan, and will assist with project implementation and promotional information.

    Currently, approximately 1411 tons of food-waste is collected annually from the five major Dining Halls on campus.  Unfortunately, all of this waste is sent to the Clinton Landfill.  There was a small pilot composting project which diverted about five percent of this waste during the short pilot test phase, but it has not been in operation for the last year.  The proposed Large-Scale Food Waste Composting Facility will divert 100 percent of this food-waste and utilize Grounds department landscape waste to generate approximately 2,822 tons of high-quality compost annually.  The compost material will be used solely on University land, including the campus grounds, athletic fields, and the Sustainable Student Farm project.  Future expansion of composting operations could incorporate the animal waste at the Beef and Sheep Facility, which is directly south of the Compost Facility.   At that time, the finished product may be used on certain crop sciences lands.

  6. Fall 2014 SSC meetings kick-off

    Student Sustainability Committee Meeting

    Union, Leadership Center Conference Room

    September 8, 2013

    5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

     

    1. Determining Executive Positions 5:00-5:10

    a. Chair

    b. Vice Chair Internal and External

    c. Communications

    d. Treasurer

     

    2. Working Group Formation and Chair Selection 5:10-5:25

    a. Energy

    b. Water

    c. Food/Waste

    d. Land

    e. Transportation

    f. Education

     

    3. Monitoring and Evaluation 5:25-5:35

     

    4. Subcommittee Formation and Chair Selection 5:35-5:45

    a. Executive

    b. Finance

    c. Bylaws

    d. Marketing

     

    5. Bylaws update 5:45-5:50

     

    6. Information meeting 5:50-6:00

     

    7. Adjournment

  7. Bousfield Hall receives Platinum LEED status

    Associated Project(s): 

    Bousfield Hall LEED® Certified: Bousfield Hall, which opened in Fall 2013, became the third university facility to achieve LEED Platinum status, the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest certification level, joining the Business Instructional Facility and Lincoln Hall.

  8. Updated RFP schedule from PEI

    Associated Project(s): 

    I am providing an updated schedule for the RFP related to a wind-power PPA for UIUC.  The change reflects a request by one vendor to extend the response period by one week.  Because of that, we have made other slight modifications to target dates for some of the milestones, but the original completion date of April 30, 2015 is maintained.

    If you have any question, please let me know.  Dan Mortland

    Attached Files: 
  9. Sustainability Ambassadors - August meeting

    Hello,

    Thank you so much for taking out time from your busy schedules to attend the Monthly Certified Green Office Program Meeting last week. I am reaching out to you to let you know that the presentation is available online under Certified Green Office Resources and can be accessed using this link: http://sustainability.illinois.edu/CertifiedGreenOfficeEnroll.html

    Our next meeting will be Sept. 25, 10-11am in Room 210, Illini Union and you can RSVP for the meeting here. Please spread the word about the program with your peers and encourage them to enroll for the program. 

    One of the program participants pointed out to me that the application (excel file) didn't affectively calculate the number of points because the cells weren't referred right in my formula. I am sorry for inconvenience, it has been fixed now and you use the attached application form instead. It is updated on our website as well. Please use the new file instead of the previous one, the only thing we changed is the formula in Cell B61. 

    In other news, the iSEE Congress registration deadline is Sept. 5, 2014 and you can register here. And iSEE is looking for self nominations for the Sustainability Working Advisory Teams Consultations Groups to help with rewriting the Illinois Climate Action Plan and you can read more about the opportunity here. Feel free to follow us on Twitter (@sustainILLINOIS) and facebook (https://www.facebook.com/iSEEatUofI) to stay updated about our events and programs. Feel free to tweet at us to share more information about your sustainability orientated events! 

    Thank you so much for committing to making the campus community greener. I am really excited to work with all of you in the months to come. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. 

    Regards,

    Nishant Makhijani

  10. LED Exit Sign projects completed

    Associated Project(s): 

    In support of the Chancellor's commitment to making the University of Illinois an LED Campus, 531 LED way-finding signs have been installed in eight campus buildings: Grainger Library, Animal Science, Roger Adams Lab, Engineering Science Building, Turner Hall, Main Library, Education Building, and the Chem. Life Sciences Lab.

  11. Goals have been surpassed!!

    The original goals for the Urbana-Champaign Energy Star Challenge were to get 50 buildings registered in the challenge and 25 buildings benchmarked.  As of today, there are 68 buildings registered in the U-C Energy Star Challenge and 41 benchmark reports (called SEPs) submitted. 

    There was a news article about surpassing the goals in July in the News-Gazette, with a voice recording of an interview with Scott Tess, City of Urbana Sustainability Manager.

     

     

  12. revised schedule

    Associated Project(s): 

    Morgan,

    I understand the deadline for submitting the RFI was extended until September 5 based on the requests from some vendors for more time to prepare their responses.

    UA / PEI will be forwarding more info and will be looking to keep the overall schedule from being extended.

    Thanks

    Kent

  13. New Bike Code released

    Associated Project(s): 

    August 31, 2014

    University Bicycle Code

    The University Bicycle Ordinance, also referred to as the University Bicycle Code, was updated for campus-specific rules such as bicycle parking and registration, as well as riding bicycles on campus property. Increased enforcement of the code started this semester. This ordinance is included in the Campus Administrative Manual (VIII-22).

    Stacey DeLorenzo • Facilities & Services

  14. F&S shared info about DDC system with Berkeley student

    For a general overview of our energy systems at the University of Illinois, please see the online overview at http://www.fs.illinois.edu/docs/default-source/Resources/brochures/utilities-energy-3-14.pdf?sfvrsn=0.

    1. Does your school have sort of campus-wide energy management system (EMS)? Or does each building have its own energy monitoring system?

    Each building has its own metering station where chilled water, condensate, and electricity are measured and recorded. The chilled water and condensate usages are recorded into the building automation system and transferred over BACnet I/P to our campus data historian system and the electric meters have an Ethernet I/P connection that is directly fed to the data historian.

    1.  Does the EMS at your school have the ability to turn the HVAC systems on/off (this feature is often called Direct Digital Control) ? 

    We have a mixture of control system types and vintages on campus. There are older pneumatic controls systems still on campus that we are gradually converting over to DDC systems. Back in 1984 is when the campus starting installing its first digital control system. This system’s primary function was for monitoring temperatures, status of various types of equipment, and start/stop and speed adjustment of HVAC.  About 20 years ago is when DDC systems were being installed for full control of system and not just for start/stop purposes. I would approximate that our campus has about 60% DDC and 40% pneumatic control.

    The HVAC systems that do have DDC control typically have some sort of occupancy schedule where the unit either shuts down or a setback mode is used for after hours. We also utilize occupancy sensors on variable air volume(VAV) air handlers for classrooms and offices. This allows us during normal hours where the unit would be running to achieve additional saving by closing off air dampers( or air flow) to specific spaces that do not have occupants.  

    We have an Energy Management Control Center (EMCC) that is staff during normal working hours to monitor our DDC systems. They monitor the alarms, handle hot/cold calls and make sure the campus HVAC systems are running at their optimal level. We use two primary DDC systems for our building controls, Siemens and Schneider Electric’s TAC system and the Delta V system is used in our production plants. All three systems are monitored in the EMCC.

    Requested information:

    Hi my name is Sho Kawano.

    I'm a student at the University of California, Berkeley currently doing research on sustainable operations, specifically energy use.

    I thought this would be the right place to contact regarding energy management at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

    1. Does your school have sort of campus-wide energy management system(EMS)? Or does each building have its own energy monitoring system?
    2. Does the EMS at your school have the ability to turn the HVAC systems on/off (this feature is often called Direct Digital Control) ? 

    If you can answer these questions for me, I'd greatly appreciate your help

    Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

    Sincerely,
    Sho Kawano 

    University of California, Berkeley | May 2017

    B.A. Statistics

  15. Project Report

    Associated Project(s): 

    Completed Project Scope and Costs:

    1. Pressure Reducing Valve stations (PRV):
      1. Utilities and Energy Services completed the installation of the PRVs, as described above, on April 27, 2013.  F&S replaced steam PRVs (pressure regulating valves) and associated isolation valves serving HVAC equipment at UIUC Library, to reduce and stabilize steam pressure to all control valves to improve comfort and reduce steam consumption. The total cost was $117,009.
    2. Steam Traps:
      1. The F&S Building Maintenance division replaced a total of 710 steam traps in the Main Library.  The total cost was $249,441.00, and this work was completed in July 2013.
    3. Control Valves:
      1. Utilities and Energy Services determined that this portion of the project should not be implemented at this time.
  16. Update from Ben McCall

    Associated Project(s): 

    Dear SWATeam Members,

    The iCAP Working Group (iWG) met today, and there are a few items I wanted to transmit to you.

    1) Attached is the approved template that your teams can use to submit formal recommendations for policies, initiatives, or studies, as described in the charge letter you received yesterday.  The iWG meetings this fall are 9/25, 10/30, 11/20, 12/4, and 12/18.  In order for a recommendation to be considered at a particular iWG meeting, it would be best if you could submit it roughly 2 weeks before that meeting.

    2) As a reminder, the charge letter asks that you update the spring reports on our campus progress towards existing iCAP goals to include Fiscal Year 2014 data.  While Evan's charge letter gave you a deadline of September 30, the iWG would be grateful if you might be able to submit these updated reports by September 22, so the iWG can review them at its September 25 meeting.

    3) Also attached is a first rough outline for the 2015 iCAP; please take a look through and consider what we are asking each SWATeam to provide. 

    At the end of the document are some thoughts about the key concepts of goals, objectives, and strategies that the iWG envisions as the core of the document.  Your suggested revisions to the iCAP are due by October 22, Campus Sustainability Day, on which representatives from each of your teams will lead a public discussion about the proposed goals, objectives, and strategies.

    This is going to be a really exciting semester, as we chart the future for campus sustainability!  If you have any questions or concerns about the process, please don't hesitate to ask.

    Thanks so much in advance for your efforts,

    Ben

    P.S. For ease of use and to keep iSEE staff in the loop, I'd appreciate it if you could use the aliases in this email's header

    (swat-*@dib.illinois.edu) when communicating with your team.

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