Sarthak Prasad and Daphne Hulse attended an in-person TEACH AD workshop at the Healthy Lifestyle Hub in Chicago to learn about the anaerobic digesters installed at Green Era Campus in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood.

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the May 2023 Buyer's Share amounts by the hour, totaling 1,518.5 Megawatt hours.

The May 2023 Buyer's Share Report is attached below.

RE: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

 

Great – thank you all for your thoughts and connections.  I’m moving Madhu and Bob to bcc and can loop them back in as needed.

 

Jennifer, Morgan and Daphne, can you please share your interest in joining a call along with your availability for the last 2 weeks in June?  I’ll get a call scheduled with Seema so that we can explore a possible collaboration.

 

Best,

Amy

 

Amy Fruehling, MBA

Senior Director of Corporate & Foundation Relations

College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

1301 W. Gregory Dr.

Urbana, IL  61801

 

217.265.4045

afruehli@illinois.edu

 

From: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 12:06 PM
To: Schooley, Robert Lee <schooley@illinois.edu>; Khanna, Madhu <khanna1@illinois.edu>; Fruehling, Amy <afruehli@illinois.edu>
Cc: White, Morgan <mbwhite@illinois.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

Amy,

 

Bob is correct that campus no longer has a battery recycling program. I would be interested in following up about how we might restart the program. Colleagues in Facilities & Services, including Morgan White and Daphne Hulse, Zero Waste Coordinator, might also be interested in joining a call.

 

On a related note, the alum may be interested in an initiative to recycle components of EV batteries (among other types) for reuse in Europe that leverages a partnership between industry and academia.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2019/new-project-launches-focusing-on-the-sustainable-reprocessing-of-rare-earth-magnets

 

Best,

Jen

 

Jennifer Fraterrigo (she/her)

iSEE Associate Director for Campus Sustainability and
Professor of Landscape and Ecosystem Ecology
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences

University of Illinois

W-423 Turner Hall, 1102 S. Goodwin Ave.

Urbana, IL 61801

jmf@illinois.edu
ph 217-333-9428

https://fraterrigolab.nres.illinois.edu/

 

 

From: Schooley, Robert Lee <schooley@illinois.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 9:27 AM
To: Khanna, Madhu <khanna1@illinois.edu>; Fruehling, Amy <afruehli@illinois.edu>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>; White, Morgan <mbwhite@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

Hi Amy,

 

Campus had a battery recycling program but it was discontinued in 2015 due to lack of funding.  It is now left to units to fund recycling programs if they want.

https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/battery-recycling

 

I also thought of Jen Fraterrigo for discussing potential partnerships on campus.

 

Thanks,

 

Bob

 

Robert L. Schooley
Professor and Head
 
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences

College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
W-503 Turner Hall | M/C 047
Urbana, IL 61801
217.244.2729 | schooley@illinois.edu
nres.illinois.edu
 

 

 

 

From: Khanna, Madhu <khanna1@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2023 5:24 PM
To: Fruehling, Amy <afruehli@illinois.edu>; Schooley, Robert Lee <schooley@illinois.edu>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>; White, Morgan <mbwhite@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

Hi Amy

 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This sounds interesting.  Would you know what kind of batteries she is interested in building a recycling program for?

I am ccing Jen Fraterrigo and Morgan White to let us know if we have any current program for this and get their thoughts on potential opportunities for battery recycling on our campus.  

 

Best

Madhu

 

 

Madhu Khanna

Pronouns: she, her

Alvin H. Baum Family Chair & Director, Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment

ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics

Co-Director, Center for Economics of Sustainability

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

 

Office: 1101 W. Peabody, Suite 336, M/C  635

Urbana IL 61801

 

email: khanna1@illinois.edu; phone: 217-333-5176; fax: 217-333-5538

 

http://ace.illinois.edu/directory/madhu-khanna

https://ceos.illinois.edu/bio-khanna

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LPH4gbUAAAAJ&hl=en

 

https://illinois.zoom.us/j/2173335176?pwd=Ri8rTzQ0S1RxZHpiY2tEWVdaSlhtZz09

 

 

From: Fruehling, Amy <afruehli@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2023 5:13 PM
To: Khanna, Madhu <khanna1@illinois.edu>; Schooley, Robert Lee <schooley@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

Madhu and Bob,

Checking in to bring this request to the top of your email again.  I’d like to get back to our alum contact at Redwood Materials this week. Did you have any thoughts on her request below, or are there others you’d suggest that I reach out to?

 

Thanks!

Amy

 

From: Bollero, German A <gbollero@illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2023 3:18 PM
To: Fruehling, Amy <afruehli@illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

I will let Madhu and Bob to respond to this.

Thanks

GB

 

From: "Fruehling, Amy" <afruehli@illinois.edu>
Date: Monday, May 22, 2023 at 2:54 PM
To: German Bollero <gbollero@illinois.edu>, "Khanna, Madhu" <khanna1@illinois.edu>, "Schooley, Robert Lee" <schooley@illinois.edu>
Subject: Campus Sustainability - Redwood Materials

 

Hi Bob, German and Madhu,

 

Redwood Materials, founded by Tesla co-founder, JB Straubel, is a renewable energy company that focuses on making batteries sustainable and affordable by localizing the battery supply chain and producing components in the US from recycled batteries. A fantastic Gies alumni and former student that I worked with, reached out and is interested in creating a battery collection program at Illinois.  She referenced the campus-wide recycling program with Coca Cola.  While I think this could fit nicely into the Campus Sustainability program, I think that we could discuss possible research, project or funding collaborations that would enhance a program of this nature and support an academic partnership.

 

I am reaching out to you given your roles in the college and campus sustainability initiatives.  Are there any programs within iSEE, NRES or that campus is working on that might align well?  Are there others within your units that you recommend that I pose this question to?  I’d like to have a follow up call with the alum, Seema Nilakhe, to share some options, and then can bring others into the conversation to hopefully begin talking about how to move forward.

 

Thank you for your thoughts,

Amy

 

Amy Fruehling, MBA

Sr. Director of Corporate Relations

217.265.4045

 

Good morning friend of the Reimagine Our Future competition,

 

We were wondering if you would like to continue to be a part of the competition for this upcoming school year. 

 

If so, can you please fill out this google form?

 

We appreciate your support and hope you will join us for another year of this amazing competition inspiring undergrads to come up with sustainable solutions.

 

Thank you so much,

Allie Garlin

Reimagine Our Future Student Assistant

The Sustainability Council met on 5-10-23 and discussed the following agenda:

• Zero Waste
• Energy Planning
• Green Research Committee
• White House Forum on Campus and Community-Scale Climate Change Solutions
• Student Updates
• Old Business
  - Sustainability General Education Requirement

The meeting minutes and slide deck are attached. 

The following links are articles detailing the business practices of Chevron's carbon offsets.

Chevron-expose_English_FINAL.pdf (corporateaccountability.org)

‘Worthless’: Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Done:

• Show "no content" message under Metric Chart when no tracking records exist
• Show loading message while waiting for long page load
• Standardized appearance of buttons, views/search forms, fieldset legends, e.g.:
  • Project Updates listing
  • Search page
  • Collection page (Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects)
  • Objectives page
  • Project edit page (Sustainability iCAP Portal)
• Browse Metrics (card view) added to live site (not linked anywhere yet)
  • Note: there are several metrics with no data. Should they be removed?

Discussion:

• Review user roles
• 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?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
  • Replace map link in Highlights?
  • Need to finish Take Action page content
• Are we ready to make Fancy Page Layout live?
• 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:

• Loading message on page unload shows up sometimes in browser page history (e.g. view iCAP Portal PDF from About page, then click "back")
• Michael will put together a spreadsheet of iCAP Clerks for review
• 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

The 2015 iCAP suggested creating a summer program, with this concept: "5 to 10 students will be selected each year for a 10-week summer program to conduct full-time research under the supervision of a faculty member to develop the scientific skills most important to success in a professional career (designing a research problem/experiments, problem-solving, interpreting results, communicating one’s science to various audiences, working in a team). Students will conduct research on real-world problems related to sustainability at the campus level, in their communities or the national/global level. They will learn to apply various tools, such as life-cycle analysis, cost-benefit methods and impact analysis, to assess, evaluate and design sustainable approaches to meeting societal demands. Through this project and experiment-based learning approach, student teams will be able to address real problems facing the campus and work together to propose solution."

Project name changed from "Sustainability Immersive Experience" to "Sustainability in Study Abroad".

Old project description:

A sustainability immersive experience is an educational program that concentrates on sustainability and its three dimensions: social, economic, and environment. The University of Illinois offers several opportunities for students to explore indepth solutions to major sustainability challenges.  Some examples include Study Abroad, Learning in Community courses, or internships that focus on sustainability.  Below is an example of an immersive program offered in the College of Business. We would be delighted to include additional opportunities.  Let us know about your program!

Students from the Sustainable Product and Market Development for Susistence Marketplaces class travel for immersion in the context and to conduct market research during part of the winter break.  The field trip has been conducted in Chennai and Bangalore, India.  Students observe households in urban and rural subsistence contexts, as well as retail and wholesale outlets.  Students interview low-literate, low-income individuals in urban and rural settings regarding product ideas for group projects.  Students also visit educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and corporations engaged in the development of innovative programs and technologies for subsistence contexts.  The field trip geared to visiting the environment of the urban and rural poor requires considerable planning and rehearsal, and has been a transformative learning experience for the students.  Spring semester is spent converting concepts to workable prototypes, and developing manufacturing, marketing and business plans.

Hi Thurman,

 

A recurring topic that’s come up in our zero waste conversations has been the desire to track and display more metrics under the zero waste theme on the iCAP Portal. Grind2Energy data was one metric that was brainstormed, as it relates closely to our Zero Waste Objective 5.5, “Plan for organic waste.” Since Dining already tracks that data, it would be easy for us to get it up on the portal. Would this be something that you’d be in favor of us doing? If so, any input on how the data is displayed (by month, or annually)?

 

Thank you,
Daphne

 

 

 

 

Hi Daphne,

 

Fate has it that I will be seeing the Grind2Energy people tomorrow at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago. I would like to see if this is something that can by automatically updated from our system. They may have some functionality for this and if not, it may be some thing they could create and would be a selling point for them. I will find out the possibilities. I would rather that this be auotmatic so that the data is always current and nobody can "drop the ball" along the way.    

 

THURMAN ETCHISON
Assistant Director of Dining - Facilities and Equipment
 

 

 

 

 

On April 10, 2023 Jennifer Fraterrigo sen the following email:

Dear Mr. Whitman and Tim,

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Working Group (iWG) recently approved recommendation Engagement005 from the Engagement iCAP Team for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics to formally join the Green Sports Alliance. The expectation is that doing so would increase the visibility of campus sustainability efforts and put UIUC on par with fellow Big10 institutions that are integrating sustainability into athletics. Additional details are provided in the attached recommendation.

The Formal iCAP Procedures include a section on campus unit responsibilities upon receipt of a recommendation, and we respectfully request your response to this recommendation by May 5, if possible. If you have any questions regarding this recommendation, we are happy to jump on a call with you to discuss it.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Fraterrigo

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

On May 2, 2023 Josh Whitman responded:

Jennifer,

The Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) approves the recommendation to formally join the Green Sports Alliance at the $2,500 Premier Membership level. Assistant Athletic Director Tim Knox will be responsible for coordinating the implementation for DIA.

Josh

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

On May 4, 2023 Jennifer forwarded the previous thread to Sarthak:

Hi Sarthak – one more!

Please mark this as successful on the portal; response below.

Thanks,

Jen

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

On May 20, 2023 Morgan White responded to Jennifer:

Hi Jen, Daphne, and Betsy,

I suggest we invite Tim Knox to a meeting, to see what support he may need from F&S and iSEE in this endeavor.  What do you think?  Or has something like that already happened?

Thanks,

Morgan

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

On May 22, 2023 Betsy Ligget replied with the following email and attached documents:

This is great news, thank you for sharing! I’m happy to join a meeting with DIA regarding Green Sports Alliance, please let me know when I can assist with the transition. The last annual membership invoice (10-13-22) is attached and is for the Nov. 1st, 2022 - Nov. 30th, 2023 time period.

I have also attached the 2021 membership letter for everyone’s files.

Thanks again,

Betsy

 

There is a sustainability program called "reverb" which is for music festivals.

Done:

• Header: remove "at" between UI and UC
• SSC project embedding:
  • Here’s the SSC dev site project example page Sammy shared with us last year.
  • Here’s the iCAP Portal project collection embedding test page I showed at our meeting this morning. It’s currently embedding 12 projects from the SSC collection on a test site, using this list of SSC categories:
    • Education and Justice
    • Energy
    • Food and Waste
    • Transportation and Infrastructure
    • Land, Air, and Water

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?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
• 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:

• 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
• Show "no content" message under Metric Chart when no tracking records exist
• 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