See this article in Lab Manager, the author works with My Green Labs and lightly covers every aspect of what sustainable labs actions are and how they help.
She also used to work for Thermo Fisher Scientific and was in the team that developed cardboard coolers for shipping supplies instead of Styrofoam.
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Making Sustainable Labs a Reality How to reduce the environmental impact of research |
Have a great day!
GRITS is updated as of 6-30-2019 and the fund balance as of 6-30-2019 is $4,131,042.
Please see ridership data below:
March:
Total rides: 1034
Total new users: 117
Total bikes out: 100 e bikes
Average rides per day: 43
Total rides to date: 393,521
Total users to date: 20,203
Please see attached.
Energy consumption at BIF during the week of March 20-March 26 is attached. We are tracking energy usage while most people are off-campus.
Following the CTAC meeting on March 27, 2020, the Committee approved the proposal of adding a one-time $10 bicycle registration fee per bicycle.
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BEE CAMPUS USA
F&S collaborated with students in the Bee Campus committee to complete the renewal of our Bee Campus USA designation in February; Illinois originally earned recognition in 2018 becoming the first B1G school to do so. This process includes using integrated pest management, installation of native plantings, student living lab projects, and outreach.
SOLAR FARM LANDSCAPE BUFFER
F&S representatives shared detailed designs for the pollinator supportive landscape buffer along the future Solar Farm 2.0 site to the Village of Savoy. Village leaders were pleased with the design plans and thanked us for being responsive to their neighborly request. When completed, this site will serve as a demonstration for pollinator-friendly solar arrays, following the requirements of the Pollinator Friendly Solar Site Act (Illinois Pub. Act 100-1022). Solar Farm 2.0 will produce approximately 20,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) annually, and will generate the equivalent electricity use of more than 2,000 average American homes.
VIRTUAL POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT RULED LEGAL
F&S and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment hired attorney Paul Durbin to evaluate the legality for the campus to enter into a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) to meet the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) goals for purchasing renewable energy. The analysis concluded that the Board of Trustees has the legal authority to enter into a VPPA, if it is financially reasonable; said agreement would be performed by Prairieland Energy, Inc. (PEI), a subsidiary wholly-owned by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Over the past two years the Ann Arbor Summer Festival has taken dramatic steps toward becoming a zero-waste event, focusing on social impact through community arts engagement. In this webinar, you will hear from James Carter, the festival's program and operations manager and co-founder of the Manhattan-based theater company terraNOVA Collective. Sponsored locally by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC, a Division of the Prairie Research Institute).
Noon-1 p.m. | Thursday, April 9
Attached are the meeting minutes from the Transportation SWATeam meeting on 30 March 2020.
The Agenda is as follows:
Recommendations Review
April Agenda
We will incorporate practices that reduce our carbon footprint and build a System-wide culture of environmental care, supporting the efforts of our universities and campuses to achieve carbon neutrality over the next three to four decades. To do this, our universities and regional campuses will actively seek:
In 2015-16, University of Illinois President Timothy Killeen led an initiative to develop a System-wide strategic framework to chart the institution's path to the future and build on the U of I's rich legacy of service to students and to the public good. The development process was a team effort involving all of the U of I's stakeholders.
The resulting strategic framework was approved at the May 19, 2016 meeting of the U of I Board of Trustees. The framework calls for the U of I System to organize its world-class resources around four strategic pillars:
I. An Institution of and for Our Students
II. Research and Scholarship with Global Impact
You can start this weekend by participating in two virtual events. On Friday we're debuting "Illini Lights Out Goes Home" to encourage people to shut off their own lights at home to save energy. And we ask you to join the national Earth Hour celebration on Saturday by going dark for one hour from 8:30-9:30 p.m. Learn more about both events below.
In accordance with campus safety guidelines, iSEE had to suspend all in-person events this semester, including the Spring 2020 Illini Lights Out series and activities related to Earth Month in April. A March 26 symposium on polar exploration, print culture and climate change, co-sponsored by iSEE and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, is among hundreds of campus events also postponed.
But we are transitioning some of our Earth Month activities to an online format, and in the meantime our calendar has other ways for you to celebrate sustainability from the comforts of home!
We will keep the Illinois Sustainability Calendar as up-to-date as possible, so please check back regularly there and in our upcoming newsletters for details! In 
the meantime, we want to extend thanks for your patience during these challenging times. We will continue to promote sustainability and the environment wherever we can!
Please see attached.
The Energy SWATeam met on 3/27/2020 for a final discussion on the four recommendation they plan to turn in on 4/3/2020. Attached are the meeting minutes.
Attached are the meeting minutes from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 27 March 2020.
The agenda is as follows:
March Formal Recommendations
April Agenda
Recommendations for next round of submissions?
F&S completed the renewal of our recognition as a Green Power Partner through the US Environmental Protection Agency. Green Power Partners of our scale now have to use renewable power for seven percent of their annual consumption, an increase from the previous requirement of three percent. Fortunately, the FY19 green power supply for FY19 was 7.28%. See attached file.
Overview submitted: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is proud of its sustainability initiatives, as documented in the Illinois Climate Action Plan. The first project was a 32.76 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic (PV) array on the Business Instructional Facility in 2009. The 14.7 kW PV array, ground mounted at the Building Research Council, is a research platform for the Information Trust Institute. The most significant on-campus renewable energy generation project to date went into operation in December 2015, with the completion of the 5.87 megawatt (MW) Solar Farm, producing approximately 7,200 MWh/year. In December 2015 another solar array was installed on the new Wassaja Residence Hall roof with a capacity of 33 kW. In September 2016, campus signed a ten-year Wind Power Purchase Agreement for 25 million kWh/year. Most recently, the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Building had 970 rooftop panels installed. Since production began in April 2019, 11% of all power supplied to the ECE Building has been from the rooftop panels, not including the panels that are used for student-oriented research. The University will soon be home to Solar Farm 2.0, which is projected to produce 20,000 MWh/year, nearly tripling on-site production.
Schedule Time: Our List of Sustainability Courses!
