Minnesota has been tracking bicycle commutes for the past few years using Radio-Frequency Identification tags (RFID tags). The progam has been successful at making it quick and easy for bicycle commuters to log their trips on to campus and enter them in to raffles or gain wellness points.

More information here:

http://www.derozap.com/gopherzap/

and,

https://www.derozap.com/zaptwincities/

Interesting program to watch as it has a positive impact on the Minneapolis/St. Paul mode-share.

First SWATeam of the ’16-17 School year. New Team Chair, Brent Lewis was chosen.  During this meeting team discussed what they liked and wanted to continue from last semester. Also, summer updates were discussed during this meeting.

9/09/16

Summary: This meeting was our inaugural meeting for the year. On the agenda today was the creation of a team description, a review of ongoing projects, and planning for future meetings.

In attendance:

    Josh Feldman

    Claire Dondival

Ankit Singhai

Yangfeng Ouyang

Pete Varney

Lily Wilcox - Active Transportation Coordinator

Olivia Webb - Sustainability Programs Coordinator

Topics Covered:

Team Description

We collectively crafted our team description for the iCAP portal, which can be found at:  https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/transportation-swateam.

Project Slides

Renewable Fleet Study:

Claire and Petehelped foster a discussion about the current types of alternative fuels for campus fleet vehicles. Currently, natural gas is the only type of fuel seriously looked at. One concern was that the gas CNG, while possible to implement, would be somewhat costly and have little payback unless driven many miles. Electric vehicles were brought up, but are currently not part of the market. Biodiesel was also mentioned, but its performance in cold weather is a concern.

Staff Mode Shift:

Lily discussed the ways that this project will reduce single occupancy vehicles. One idea looked at was bike sharing, which has been tried by Purdue but does not have much payback economically. Lily also discussed “It’s your MTD too”, which features social bus-riding trips which introduce MTD to campus employees.

Bike Plan:

This was a summary of effort to make campus more bike-friendly. This would include having more, and better, bike parking. UIUC was recently recognized as a bronze-level Bike Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists.

Future Meetings

We decided that every other Friday at 1pm is a good time to hold meetings. We will be holding meetings in the National Soybean Research Laboratory. Our clerk Josh will send out reminders.

In support of the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot initiative, NREL is offering no-cost technical assistance to universities seeking to go solar.

http://www.nrel.gov/tech_deployment/tools_universities.html

The Champaign County Pollinator Coalition group had their first meeting on September 7, 2016, from 1:30 - 3 pm. The main topics of discussion included the needs, concerns, and decisions. 

Team Clerk Chibu Asonye attended a Clerkship Orientation meeting with Olivia Webb, Sustainability Programs Coordinator at iSEE and Clerk Alexia Bedolla of the Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling SWATeam. During this meeting, Olivia walked through how to navigate, update, and over all populate the ICAP Portal for the SWATeams. Olivia also went over the charge list for the Clerks, detailing a few due dates and things to keep in mind over the school year. 

The Chicago Tribune included a mention of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as one of two schools in Illinois that have joined the Billion Dollar Green Challenge.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-north-centra...

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-08-26/toms-mailbag-aug-26-20...

UI solar farm
 

“The solar panel field located near the corner of Windsor Road and First Street has become overgrown with tall weeds. Do the panels still work with that much foliage under and above them? Also, would hiring sheep or goats to ‘mow’ the weeds be harmful to the sheep or goat (heat from the panels)?”

The Solar Farm on the University of Illinois campus was implemented as a power purchase and land lease agreement with Phoenix Solar South Farms, LLC, said Steve Breitwieser of the UI’s Facilities & Services Department.

“The agreements designate Phoenix as responsible for all maintenance of the Solar Farm during the 10-year contract, and this includes vegetation control.

“A contractor hired by Phoenix was on site in mid-June, and they are performing additional weed control activities this week.”

When the agreement with Phoenix ends, Breitwieser said, the UI will assume Solar Farm maintenance responsibilities.

And — how about this? — preliminary discussions have begun with research faculty regarding the use of sheep or low-height food crops in the future, he said.

Meanwhile, neighboring plant growth has not impacted solar production, said Breitwieser.

Solar array data can be viewedat: http://go.illinois.edu/solar.

The SSC funding for Zero Waste Coordination ($64,862) covers four different recycling efforts.

1)      Campus-wide infrastructure, $29,750: Expanding the “Dual bins on the Quad” to north of Green and eastward to Goodwin Avenue, in collaboration with F&S Superintendent of Grounds Ryan Welch.  Ryan’s Grounds workers are mapping the existing bins, as a first step.  All of this funding is for the physical infrastructure (bins and lids, etc.).

2)      Campus-wide education, $1,032: The key message of personal responsibility for waste management needs to be communicated through multiple channels on campus, in order to effect the culture shift that we deeply need on campus.  F&S will create educational materials to explain the recycling options available to the campus community, to reduce confusion.  The funding is based on 8 presentations throughout campus and development of educational materials (which will be used in future years as well).  All materials will thank SSC for their funding support.

3)      Building specific solutions, $30,520: Per the completed Waste Characterization Studies, there are various changes that can be implemented in the studied buildings to improve waste diversion.  These changes need to be approved and implemented in coordination with building occupants, so there is a need for a staff coordinator to work with the individual units.  The funding is based on two weeks of staff time per building, for eight buildings.

4)      Special recyclables expansion $3,560: There are new programs available for interested units on campus to recycle nitrile gloves, styrofoam, alkaline batteries, and glass.  Unfortunately, very few units are aware of these opportunities.  We are requested funding for student employees to reach out directly to potential participants and help them incorporate the applicable programs.

After the August 5th presentation by Niharika Kishore to College of Engineering facilities contact Greg Larson, Greg spoke with Mechanical Engineering facilities contact Damon McFall about roofotp solar for the Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB).  Morgan Johnston explained that MEB had been left off the list Niharika worked on because of the upcoming Capital Programs project in that facility.  Greg indicated that they are interested in pursuing rooftop solar for MEB.  Potentially the design could be included in the Capital Project design effort, and the installation would need to be funded separately.  This roof could hold approximately 130 kW array.

The University of Illinois Foundation (UIF) has an account set up for clean energy at the University of Illinois at Springfield:

"Sustainable Energy Initiative: Springfield

UIS, like many institutions, is looking to sustainable energy and environmentally friendly products to both reduce consumption and conserve valuable resources. Future plans include the addition of wind and solar power, as well as green-building upgrades. These features will not only be used for production, but also be used in classroom instruction and will open doors for faculty and student research, as well as opportunities for public awareness activities relating to alternative and sustainable energies."

The Big Ten and Friends Sustainability group is collaborating on a Prospectus about how sustainability helps the universities accomplish several of their missions.  Each participating school was asked to note their high-level and visionary goal for the Prospectus and the Big Ten group as a whole.  Sustainability staff at UIUC offered the following goals:

What are your goals for using the outcomes of the Big Ten Prospectus at your institution?  “The University of Illinois Provost Office (budgetary authority) is interested in evaluating the appropriate funding model for our sustainability efforts, and we hope to use the outcomes from the Prospectus to help inform them about the importance and benefit of the overall sustainability efforts, and how it ties directly to the campus mission.”

What potential (think big!) do you see for our network as a whole?  How can this work help us leverage regional impacts, move all of our institutions forward, etc.? “We have been making great strides in sustainability, but campus continues to elevate other mission priorities over sustainability when achieving these goals is considered cumbersome or unfeasible. We hope that through this Prospectus, the Big Ten and, subsequently, campuses across the nation will see that sustainability is a mission-critical goal, and will not proceed with any action until it can be made sustainable. Could we also partner on various efforts, from Carbon Credits to recycled paper purchases to RECs, etc. to save money and effort? We should also update the website at http://greenbigten.msu.edu/index.html and https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/Big10EnvStew/Big+Ten+Environmental+St....”

The Zipcar Brand Ambassadors joined the Transportation Demand Management team at Quad Day this fall.  They handed out all the promotional information they had with them in the first forty minutes of the four hour event, and then shared sustainable transportation materials along Green Street for the remainder of the afternoon.

Also, F&S is looking into digital sign materials to promote Zipcar.

The Illinois map has a category called bike racks.  These were added based on a student survey done several years ago.  The Active Transportation Coordinator is working with GIS Specialist James Whitacre, and student volunteers, to update the data and the campus map.  This should be completed during FY17.