The past few weeks have been very busy.  I have not been able to write a weekly digest.  We have seen a massive increase in people coming in.  The shop has been operating at above capacity, but with some patience on the part of those coming in as well as some kind volunteers we have gotten by.  We have tabled at the International Student Check in, Quad Day, and the Paraprofessional Resource Fair.  We pulled about 80 bikes from the warehouse, donated quite a few bikes to Habitat for Humanity, and a couple to the YMCA.  I helped coordinate bike volunteers for Dump and Run and helped a little coordinating volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.  I helped the organizers of the Illinois Bike Summit find speakers for the Community Bike Shop portion of the Summit.  I helped create some new advocacy materials.

This week I plan on reorganizing the Center to fix the chaos of the last few weeks, building bikes, printing more advocacy materials, and working on ordering bike parts.

I will see about creating a class schedule for the semester.

From the Campus Outpost,

James Roedl

The attached file is a draft bike checkout sheet.  This can be modified for future uses.

Nice Solar Farm reference in this article about Ohio University….

“We can learn from and be inspired by these models. Meanwhile, other schools also developing significant solar energy projects, such as University of Maryland (2 MW), Rochester Institute of Technology (2 MW), Elon University (3 MW), University of Illinois (5.87 MW), and Pennsylvania State University (the class of 2015 is holding a solar-array design contest to determine its gift to PSU).”

http://www.athensnews.com/opinion/readers_forum/ou-can-start-transition-to-green-energy-by-working-with/article_a18cc578-3086-11e5-9dfe-7f529356389c.html

Emily Cross and Mike Doyle from the University YMCA met with Ben McCall from iSEE, Nancy Holm from ISTC, and Morgan Johnston from F&S to describe the history and process of the YMCA Dump and Run.  The program has been around for approximately 15 years, and a couple years ago they expanded collections to include the campus residence halls.  There are many opportunities to grow the program, and thereby reduce the waste going to landfills, but the YMCA staff are currently at capacity for managing the program.

The Architecture Review Committee (ARC) got an inquiry about the possiblity of mounting solar vertically on south-facing walls (without windows).  This could be a sheer flush-mounted solar PV array immediately against the wall.  The PVs would not produce as much energy as a roof-top array, but there could be fewer issues with rooftop penetrations, etc.  The ARC noted that there is not a specific policy about this idea yet, and they would willing to work with the idea on installation on a case by case, building by building basis, at least until there is a comprehensive policy in place.

For a given capacity of PV modules, a vertical wall will harvest 78% of the energy that a flat roof would, and 67% of the energy that could be harvested at a 40 degree tilt. While this is not ideal, the costs may be lower and the maintenance and roof loading concerns would not pertain.  Two possible candidates are the south wall of NSRC (which has no windows in the "central" part) and the south facade of the Tryon Festival Theater in Krannert, which is actually somewhat tilted.

<post edited on 7/15/2024, added "Vertical Solar Panels on MEB" project, mbwhite>

An introduction was written for the iCAP Portal, welcoming individuals to learn more about the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) and its goals. In addition, information is included to aid in navigating the website, its project pages, and its features.

See the attached file to read the written introduction page.

Dear Colleagues:

We hope this email finds you well. We are writing to provide you an update on the Big Ten Prospectus. Based on conversations with individual partner institutions, Metrics Working Group members, and progress made over the last month, we’ve determined we need to expand the metrics development process to allow for: 

• Background research on mission level objectives and metrics: Two and a half weeks ago, the Metrics Working Group took a break from their work to allow Emilie to research desired institutional outcomes among executive leadership. Building on a strong foundation from our pre-AASHE conversation and a preliminary list of outcomes compiled by a Purdue student, she took two weeks to read strategic planning documents (e.g., presidential speeches, university-wide and campus specific strategic plans, sustainability reports) from our partner institutions. She will be reaching out to you in the next couple of days to inform you which documents she’s reviewed from your institution and request your suggestions for additional documents you feel should be reviewed. The next two weeks will be spent synthesizing this information into conference wide executive leadership outcomes, priority areas, and metrics. Final conclusions will be outlined in a 1-2 page summary document.
• Communication with executive leadership: We hope the summary document can be used by each of you to initiate a conversation with one or more allies in executive leadership for the purposes of: 1) conveying basic project details, and 2) obtaining feedback on synthesized outcomes, priority areas, and metrics.
• Additional time for metrics development: After some very helpful feedback from partner institutions, we’ve extended this process to allow our Metrics Working Group more time and support to build a set of metrics for the prospectus based on mission level outcomes and metrics, our metrics developed at the pre-AASHE meeting in Portland, and STARS.

We’ve summarized these modifications in the attached graphic.

Given these modifications to the process, we’ve extended the timeline for the project with the pre-AASHE meeting in Minneapolis now serving as a midpoint check-in for the project, and a potential meeting at the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference serving as the final project deadline. A summary of key dates can be found below.

We will be touching base monthly to inform you of progress on the project, but we encourage you to reach out any time with comments or questions about the process.

To-date, nine (9) partner institutions have committed to the Prospectus project by paying the invoice that was distributed by AASHE on our behalf.  We have a verbal commitment from several of the remaining institutions and hope that you can get the invoices paid by the end of the month.  Thank you for your continued support and participation.

Best,

Michael, Denice, Liz, and Emilie

***********************************************************************************************************************************

REVISED PROJECT TIMELINE:

Please find definitions for each stakeholder group at the bottom of the timeline.

• July 22-August 3: Partner institution and executive leadership comment period for summary document
  
  • August 3: Deadline for partners institutions to submit comments
• July 27-August 31: Metrics Working Group develops prospectus metrics
• September 1-11: Partner institution comment period for metrics
• September 14-October 16: Preliminary data requested from partner institutions
• October 24: Pre-AASHE meeting in Minneapolis (RSVP here)
• November 16: Final data due from partner institutions
• December 21: Preliminary draft of prospectus due to planning team
• January 11-February 2: Partner institution comment period for draft
• February 8-26: Executive leadership comment period for revised draft
• March 7: Final copy ready for publication
• Early-April: Pre-SSCC conversation to discuss next steps

STAKEHOLDER GROUPS:

• Partner Institutions: All institutions participating in the project
• Executive Leadership: Executive leaders at the partner institutions
• Metrics Working Group: A group of sustainability officers—from partner institutions—who have agreed to participate in the metric development process. Please note this group is open to anyone interested.
• Consultant: Emilie Rex, former assistant director of sustainability at Indiana University, is serving as the consultant for the project
• Planning Team: The planning team consists of Liz Christiansen (Iowa), Michael Gulich (Purdue), Denice Wardrop (Penn State), and Emilie Rex (project consultant)

Michael J. Gulich, AIA, LEED

Director of University Sustainability

Purdue University