The attached proposal is for funding from the Revolving Loan Fund to do RCx at the State Farm Center. This project is expected to cost $250,000 and pay for itself in energy savings within two years of completion. 

Evan DeLucia will present the AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture on November 19. The talk, Rethinking American Agriculture: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Production, will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Rattan Lal, the 2020 World Food Prize Laureate.

The College of ACES recently announced a gift of aerial imagery, two multispectral agricultural data sets valued at $1.5M, from Aerial Agronomy, Inc. The gift will be "used in teaching and research, including efforts to estimate soil health and carbon flux from agricultural land in the Midwest."

-- from https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1514117041.html

The Fall 2020 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:

Dear Colleagues,

Attached, please find attached the Fall 2020 “iQ” – the quarterly update from the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).

It has been two months since I became interim director of ISEE.  It has been exciting to see ISEE bring in multimillion-dollar research grants, launch a new research initiative in regenerative agriculture, and help coalesce sustainable agriculture research on our campus during this period.

Our Certificate in Environmental Writing has engaged students in making insightful contributions to a new issue of Q Magazine. We have also expanded our opportunities for education and scholarly discourse with several online events, including those on nuclear energy and geothermal energy research.

We formally launched the new Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP 2020) on Oct 20, 2020. This ambitious plan is the result of the hard work of campus sustainability folks who worked hand-in-hand with Facilities & Services and incorporated the vision of hundreds of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members into a plan for the next five years and beyond — all the way to carbon neutrality no later than 2050!

I am so grateful to Evan Delucia for his efforts over the first seven years as the first director of our Institute. He has left iSEE as a vibrant part of the Illinois community, and I am working with our outstanding ISEE staff to expand upon the work already begun — as evidenced in this six-page update.

Please take a quick look at those updates and more in “iQ.” For more regular news, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.

Wishing you a successful end to the fall semester,

Madhu

Attached are the notes from the November meeting for the Campus Tree Advisory Committee. 

For a class project, F&S reviewed the irrigation metering for the following buildings:

• 303 Play Field Service Building
• 374 Hartley Gardens
• 1486 Grounds Garage
• 100 President House
• 1502 Softball Training Center
• 1270 Eichelberger Locker Room

Out of that list, buildings 374 and 100 are the only ones with irrigation meters. The water consumption for those irrigation meters is attached here.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative awarded a $2M grant to the University of Illinois and collaborators to "develop improved seed corn tailored to the needs of the rapidly growing organic industry." Martin Bohn will lead the project.

-- From: https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/812995663.html

The New Speed of Politics: Technology and Sustainability in the EU

Countries of the European Union have collectively offered a leading global voice on the use of technology for local and planetary sustainability. Please join the EU Center for this panel event on Thursday, November 12 at noon featuring two former members of the European Parliament: Hans-Olaf Henkel and Benedek Jávor. For more information and to register, click here.

November 12, 12 pm

Sydney Lazarus • European Union Center

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the October 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2192.3 Megawatt hours. See attached file.

Discussions continue in regards to University of Illinois System's EPA SmartWay affiliation status. Kate Yoshida, UIC Program Director of Sustainability, met with Morgan White and Sinead Soltis to brainstorm departments across both campuses that would benefit from learning more about the SmartWay program. Morgan and Sinead shared their plans to present to iSEE, F&S Transportation, the Illini Union, and other relevant departments that will assist in recognizing our status of being an affiliate.

Bianca Han, an undergraduate student, compiled a table that compares the approval status of various tree species by municipality (Champaign, Savoy, and Urbana). The table highlight inconsistencies in biodiversity policies. As examples, scarlet oak and blue ash appear to be prohibited in Champaign, approved in Savoy, and not addressed in Urbana.

The table also illustrates possible sources of information developed in one municipality that could be used in others. For example, crabapple appears to be approved in Champaign but not addressed in Savoy and Urbana; English Oak appears to be approved in Savoy but not addressed in Champaign and Urbana; and river ash appears to be prohibited in Savoy but not addressed in Champaign and Urbana.

https://iiseagrant.org/publications/full-sun-rain-garden/

Food for Justice | Food for Thought, with Artist Seitu Jones

Artist Seitu Jones will join a panel of Champaign-Urbana residents to talk about local food insecurities and the needs, desires and hopes of the community. This discussion, moderated by Urbana arts and culture coordinator, Rachel Storm, will feature Dawn Blackman, Ruby Mendenhall, Jennifer Monson, Magdalena Novoa, and Bobby Smith II, in conversation with Seitu Jones.

October 26, 5:30–7:30 pm • Map

Sharon Irish • Center for Advanced Study and Dance