Congratulations to the Department of Chemistry Administrative Office (September) and Department of Communications (October) for recently acheiving gold certification! These two offices were featured in the iSEE newsletter and at the October 2020 Campus Sustainability Celebration! 

Department of Chemistry Administrative Office feature

Department of Communications feature

Doug Wolters, the ACES Director of Operations, responded to Morgan White, co-chair of the iWG, with the following email:

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Good morning Morgan,

Many thanks to you and your team for your work on the development of the iCAP 2020!

The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) has a long standing commitment to sustainability and is fully supportive of the iCAP goals and specifically the SWATeam recommendation to “conduct a Feasibility Study to construct and operate an anaerobic digester on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.”

As noted in the recommendation, the feasibility study should be incorporated into the planning phase of the new Dairy Farm project.  Although the 2017 Campus Master Plan indicates a new Dairy Farm at Lincoln Avenue extended, the timing and funding of this project are yet to be determined, confirming several of the comments and perceived challenges identified in the iWG Assessment and SWATeam Recommendation regarding the need to consider such items as project timing, funding, return on investment, resource allocation, and other financial impacts. 

All the best,

Doug

See Energy001 Anaerobic Digester Feasibility Study - Transmitted

For further information about this project, see Anaerobic Digester at Beef and Sheep Study.

Please see attached the final presentation used for the CTAC fall 2020 meeting as well as the preliminary results from the Vision Zero study by Dr. Rahim Benekohal's group.

Attached are the meeting minutes and chat from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 11/13.

Discussed were the following topics:

• Update: Adopt-a-highway/Clean-up Program
• Composting Partnership: Alex Poltorak of Urban Canopy
• Student Project: Vermiculture Composting
• Grind2Energy Additional Scope
• Food Literacy Project
• Update: Clean Plate Program
• Purchasing Sustainability Update

Attached are the meeting minutes and chat from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 11/13.

Discussed were the following topics:

• Update: Adopt-a-highway/Clean-up Program
• Composting Partnership
• Student Project: Vermicompost
• Novel Scope Addition: Grind2Energy
• Update: Food Literacy Project
• Update: Clean Plate Program
• Update: Sustainability within Purchasing (Website & Protocols)

Sinead Soltis, as an F&S Sustainability intern, presented the new SmartWay Program to Meredith Moore and Jenna Kurtzweil at iSEE.  The iSEE reps were very supportive of the program roll-out and had great suggestions for additional contacts to share the information with, such as the Engagement SWATeam.

See the attached pdf for presentation slides. 

All, Lovely summery weather last week!
Main event for the week was a marketing meeting to discuss new and innovative ways to promote the Bike Center, which was fruitful and really put into perspective how much stuff we do here at CBC when explaining it, even in general terms. And things like build-a-bikes vs. refurbished vs. DIY repairs will always confuse the uninitiated.
This week is business as usual. Bikes to be picked up from Parking, an Active Transportation Advisory Committee meeting, staff meetings to be scheduled, and so forth. Some suppliers seem to be restocked a bit on some much-needed bike parts but as we inch ever-closer to fall/winter, immediate demand for those parts will wane. But we’ll still stock up a bit.
The numbers:

Visitors: 12
Sales: $226.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $200
Misc: $26.50

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

Following the completion of iWG assessment for Energy001 Anaerobic Digester, the recommendation was transmitted to German Bollero (ACES Associate Dean for Research) and Doug Wolters (Director of Operations, Facilities Planning and Management) on October 27, 2020.

See the submittal of Energy001 Anaerobic Digester.
See iWG assessment of Energy001 Anaerobic Digester attached.

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Good morning German and Doug,

On behalf of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Working Group I am transmitting a recommendation from the Energy Sustainability Working Advisory Team (SWATeam) for your attention.  This recommendation is to identify a lead researcher in coordination with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) to initiate a feasibility study for an anaerobic digester at the future dairy facility in the College of ACES. The original Energy001 recommendation from the SWATeam is attached here, as well as the iCAP Working Group’s assessment and an extended comment from one of our iWG student members, Jonah Messinger.

We appreciate your support during the development of the iCAP 2020, which was recently finalized and approved by Chancellor Jones at the Campus Sustainability Celebration. To see more, you can visit the iCAP 2020 page on the iCAP Portal at https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/icap-2020-illinois-climate-action-plan. As a reminder, the iCAP includes this statement on page 67, “A promising future technology for the campus is an anaerobic digester that could accompany the construction of a new Dairy Facility. The proposed digester would use organic waste to produce biofertilizer and biogas, which could be upgraded to renewable natural gas (RNG) and processed into renewable compressed natural gas (CNG). The renewable CNG could then be used as fuel for the campus fleet.” Thank you again for your assistance with the development of this plan. 

For your info, the prior digester study was for an installation at the Beef and Sheep facility, and it was quite promising for research tied to ACES and Engineering. In 2014, we worked with Dr. Neal Merchen on the development of an ISTAR proposal with several of your faculty.  That effort was stalled with some leadership changes, but it is still available to be reviewed and enhanced in connection with the future dairy facility.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or any member of the iWG.  We look forward to hearing your response to the recommendation, and we ask that you provide an official reply by November 20 addressing how you plan to move forward with this recommendation.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Morgan and Ximing

The Resilience SWATeam met on Nov. 4th, 2020 and discussed an Urban Biodiversity Master Plan and an Environmental Justice Plan for the University and surrounding cities. Attached are the meeting minutes and chat log. 

Summary of progress: 

1.) Biodiversity Plan: A recommendation is being drafted to convene executive and advisory committees where university, local governments, and community members collaborate to gather research. The process could potentially be informed and organized by the Cities with Nature platform, which the city of Urbana is already using.

2.) Environmental Justice Plan: iSEE is compiling a list of contacts to engage for starting an Environmental Justice Plan and conducting research on best practices for making such a plan. 

All, Slow week again. Grabbed a few more bikes from the warehouse. I’ve been given clearance to remove all the remaining bikes, so I’ll be doing that in small doses for the rest of the semester. I’ll bring some of my staff along to help. Moving bikes around is a lot easier for college-aged kids anyway.

I spoke with a UIPD officer last week about traffic safety after I had some close encounters with vehicles on campus. We’ve tentatively planned to do a meet and greet/talk next semester with my staff and UIPD to cover road safety on campus. It’ll be great to have the ear of enforcement on cycling issues and in the end, be better cycling advocates to the community.

Numbers:

Visitors: 6
Sales: $228.00
Memberships: 1 for $60
Bike Sales (refurb): 1 for $160
Misc parts: 2 for $8

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager