Research, managing labs, and personnel keeping you busy? No worries!

International Freezer Challenge Coordinators can enter your lab's information and the cold-storage sample management efforts you have made during the past year.

Any changes, upgrades, cleaning out, defrostings, filter cleanings, and reductions to freezer/refrigerators can all be added to your score sheets. 

Sample management, reductions, inventory creation or changes and upgrades, as well as, increasing room-temperature sample-storage inventory are all actions that increase your score and reduce the environmental impact of your lab operations.

All actions in sample management you have made since August 2020 help your lab improve environmental impact, reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption, and are eligible to boost your lab and UIUC's overall point totals in the 2021 International Freezer Challenge.

If you would like us to register your lab and complete your score sheet?

• Send a completed copy of the linked word document with your action items, or send a request for assistance to gfoote2@illinois.edu.
• If requesting assistance, we will arrange a time to meet with you and gather the necessary information to complete your lab's registration and scorecard.

Help UIUC defend our 1st place international standing and win the opportunity to be highlighted and have your photo in NATURE magazine!

For more information and questions about the International Freezer Challenge, please contact Paul Foote, F&S energy efficiency and conservation specialist, gfoote2@illinois.edu, 217-244-1048.

Hello all and happy Sunday! We have our next TED Talk: Eco-Edition event on the topic of water conservation and policy on Thursday! Vica Otrubina, a graduate student in Civil & Environmental Engineering, is this month’s host. She will be showing a pre-recorded TED Talk from December 2019 by Kelsey Leonard, “Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans” followed by a guided discussion. I am really looking forward to this topic and hope you are able to join!

The discussion will be held on Thursday evening, June 24, from 6 – 7 PM on Zoom. Register here. As always, all are welcome to attend. Grab a snack, invite anyone else who may be interested, and get ready for a thought-provoking and enlightening discussion in a casual environment – not to mention, a fun time with great folks! J Have suggestions for future TED Talk topics or hosts? Let me know!

Have a good week and see you on Zoom Thursday evening,
Meredith

Calling all citizen-scientists! The Seventh Annual BeeBlitz will be on Saturday, June 26th, 2021 from 9-11 AM CDT! 

To attend, meet at the Pollinatarium or go bee spotting in a forest, prairie, or backyard near you! Bring your camera or smartphone and be ready to snap photos of honey & bumblebees, then upload them to BeeSpotter to contribute to its database of Midwestern bee spottings.

Learn more about the BeeBlitz.

All, Made some progress last week on the surplus of scrap bikes that we’d been accumulating. Shop is looking cleaner. Thanks to Todd for picking that up this weekend. We got seven bikes donated from Champaign Cycle, which I was able to pick up on the bike trailer. One of those bikes was a very quick fix and is on the floor ready to be sold. We replaced a damaged fork and now the bike is orange and blue—how appropriate!
I interviewed and began the hiring process for a new student worker.
The community bike ride season is well underway as there was a Juneteenth Freedom Ride last Saturday and two moonlight rides happening this week—one on Friday and one on Wednesday. We’ll talk that up to any visitors this week.

The numbers:
Visitors: 16
Sales: $508
Bikes (refurb): 2 for $290
Memberships: 2 for $60
Misc: 7 for $41

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Morgan White, Brian Bundren, and Brad Klein met to discuss the net zero space policy. Morgan's notes are attached.

Todd from the ironworkers shop has begun rolling out the bins as planned / verified. We still need to go through the rest of campus to get him more locations to complete. As Shantanu Pai is still in Chicago, Sydney who is the newest zero waste intern at F&S can facilitate the documentation and communication with the trades. 

Jennifer Neef, Director of the Career Center, responded to Meredith Moore and agreed to collaborate to incorporate sustainability into the Career Fairs, per the message below on 6/30/20.

============================

Hello Meredith,

Thanks for a great conversation.

The Career Center supports the iCAP Education goal of helping student finding meaningful employment related to sustainability. Our mission is to provide students with impactful services and resources that empower them to pursue career opportunities aligned with their interests, skills, values, and talents. I look forward to working with you and members of the task force in the coming year.

Jennifer M. Neef
Director

===========================

See transmittal of Edu003 Sustainability Career Fair.
See SWATeam recommendation and submittal of Edu003 Sustainability Career Fair.

For future updates on this effort, see Sustainability at Career Fairs. 

All, Getting steadily busier! Sold some bikes, helped some people. A anecdotal metric for busyness: last week was the first time I had to repeatedly and firmly ask someone to leave after we’d closed up for the evening.

Got the bike trailer fixed up so parts runs are easier. Had a planning meeting for LTN and BTWD last week. Looking forward to those events in the fall. Last week was a hot one, so I was especially appreciative of the A/C in the new bike center.

Former student worker Eric brought in a trash bag stuffed full of old clothes to use for rags. We’ve been short on rags since the pandemic hit so this was much needed and much appreciated.

Still short staffed but patrons have been very understanding and in a way that functions like pulling off the training wheels of learning bike repair. Silver linings!

The numbers:

Visitors: 14
Sales: $677.50
Bikes: 3 for $490
Memberships: 2 for $60
Misc: $56

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

As a part of the terms of the funding agreement for Meadow at Orchard Downs Low Mow Zones, the Student Sustainability Committee released a semesterly report with key information about the project on June 14, 2021. The report can be viewed below.

Please see attached the ridership information for May 2021.

Instead of assigning traditional and compartmentalized roles in a hierarchical structure, the new SSLC leadership decided to all share the title of “Co-President.” The Co-Presidents of the SSLC for the 2021-22 school year are Maiah Caise, Owen Jennings, Maria Maring, and Jack Reicherts. 

The Co-Presidents met weekly during the last one to two months of the Spring 2021 semester, mostly to get acquainted with one another and establish the basic foundation of the revamped SSLC. Some of the highlights of those meetings include: 

The SSLC now boasts three social media accounts: Facebook @sslcuiuc; Twitter @uiuc_sslc; and Instagram @uiuc_sslc. 

There are two main ambitions that the SSLC hopes to pursue, in addition to the responsibilities that the Council has historically tended to: a campus-wide Sustainability Summit and some form of iCAP accountability promotion. Both of these initiatives are very early in the works. The Sustainability Summit will hypothetically take place during Sustainability Month (October) 2021, and it will be in collaboration with many on- and off-campus entities, most notably the SSC. iCAP accountability will likely take the form of a social media campaign, likely in heavy collaboration with SECs. 

The Energy iCAP Team made the following recommendation on 6/8/21. The Energy007 Comprehensive Energy Plan recommendation is attached as well as supplemental information. 

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We recommend that F&S initiate the development of an energy planning document in FY21.

F&S submitted the Spring 2021 Semesterly Report to the SSC for the Solar Farm 2.0 Landscape Buffer project!

Read the report in the attached files below.