Dr. Mohamed Attalla, the Executive Director of Facilities and Services, recently spoke on the Solar Podcast about the progress made at the University of Illinois in regards to green energy with the addition of Solar Farm 2.0.  Dr. Mohamed Attalla was alongside Pedro De La Barra, the Project Manager for Sol Systems, as they discussed the working relationship between the University and those at Sol Systems. Solar Farm 2.0 is expected to be producing solar energy in early 2021. 

Please see the link below to listen to this podcast!

https://fs.illinois.edu/resources/newsroom/2020/10/28/podcast-dr.-attalla-joins-the-solar-podcast

Attached are the meeting minutes and chat from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 10/30.

Discussed were the following topics:

• Air Travel Emissions Offsetting
• Campus Master Plan
• Campus Bike Plan
• Fleet Replacement Plans
• Reduce Driving on Campus and SOVs
• Commuter Program

F&S has renewed our campus' recognition as a Green Power Partner for FY20 through the Environmental Protection Agency. This voluntary program promotes the use of green power, and the combined supply for the Champaign-Urbana campus during FY20 was 7.2% of the total electricity usage. 

Please see the attached file to see a more in-depth look at the green power supplied and generated on campus

     

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Active transportation can save time, money, and protect the environment! How are you getting around campus, Illini?

A post shared by Illini Campus Recreation (@illinoiscampusrec) on Oct 27, 2020 at 1:09pm PDT

All,

Pretty slow week. Had the iCAP sustainability celebration on Tuesday, which was great. Always fun to see/hear from other parts of campus that are working towards a better future for our campus. On the flipside, I had the displeasure of reporting a dangerous F&S driver that same day and then a dangerous MTD driver on Thursday.

Todd came by and cleared out scrap on Friday which was welcomed.

As of this morning, I communicated with Working Bikes that we will not be doing our annual abandoned bike donation as Parking did not collect bikes last spring, due to COVID, and thus we have no bikes to donate to them. It hasn’t been decided/communicated whether Parking will collect later in the fall/winter or wait until spring. This will also negatively affect how many bikes we’ll have for sale next spring, as the pool of available bikes is lower. But of course, most of the abandoned bikes were being donated and for sale numbers were always more dependent on our ability/time to build more than a dearth of bikes.

The numbers:
Visitors: 11 (7 UIUC-affiliated)
Sales: $225
Memberships: 4 for $120
Misc parts: 8 for $55

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

The TRT User Manual based on Energy Farm is now available via two campus links:

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/107820

https://isgs.illinois.edu/publications/c603

Sarthak Prasad met with Shayna Talpallikar to discuss her proposal to promote bicycle registration on campus. Bicycle Registraiton has been mandatory for years, as explained in the University Bicycle Ordinance, and the university should promote it more like that. There is a new national registration system, with a one-time $10 registration fee, and it is available to all - students, faculty, staff, alumni (in C-U area), departmental bicycles, as well as the residents of Urbana, Champaign, Savoy, or any other Champaign County residents.

Shayna expressed interest in helping us out with this project and how we can achieve it. We discussed two main ideas, and thought adding signage to major bicycle parking areas to be the best option right now. Another option was to have Bicycle Registration days or events across campus where we give out free donuts and raffle option to those who register. However, this idea was discouraged due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please see attached some notes from the meeting. A recording of the meeting is also available.

All,

Mike, a semi-regular at the old shop, walked in on Friday for his appointment, looked around and said, “What’d you have to do to get upgraded to such a nice spot?”

Just another positive review of our new space.

I coordinated with Parking to do more frequent pick ups—but smaller loads—of abandoned bikes, which should allow for a better flow of bikes in and out of the bike center. This should be more manageable for myself and my staff going forward, as well.

This week is a Campus Sustainability Celebration on Tuesday, a CBC staff meeting Wednesday evening, and warm weather to close out the week, which usually equals some more traffic, but we’ll see if that holds during a pandemic.

The numbers:

Visitors: 14
Sales: $178.20
Memberships: 4 for $120
Misc parts: 4 for $40

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

The Illinois Monarch project is an organization that collaborates with both public and private partners, interacting on all levels for the protection and the enhancement of habitats that support monarch butterflies and other pollinators. This project calls for the involvement from individuals to whole cities, with the goal of adding 150 million new milkweed stems to Illinois’ landscape by 2038!

As an individual, I call onto you to also sign this pledge and get involved to support our state’s insect!

See here for a link to the pledge:

http://illinoismonarchproject.org/pledge/

In addition to signing the pledge, I encourage you to also take the time to look deeper into all the great work this organization has done and plans to do: http://illinoismonarchproject.org/

iSEE and F&S are excited to invite you to the Campus Sustainability Celebration 2020! This is an annual event that is especially exciting this year with the signing ceremony of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) 2020, (once every five years) and the presentation of energy conservation and Freezer Challenge awards. Everyone is invited and encouraged to stay afterward for a social-hour!

Campus Sustainability Celebration

October 20, 3 pm • Map

Meredith Moore • Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment

 This opportunity is available online.