Art Schmidt from Civil and Environmental Engineering, reached out to faculty and students urging them to create a team made up of individuals from different disciplines/departments for the Rainworks Challenge. UIUC won this design competition in 2017 and Schmidt credits this success to the fact that the winning team was made up by many disciplines across campus. Schmidt explains that he is willing to serve as a faculty advisor for this challenge. 

Brent Lewis, Brian Chaille, CEE students and other individuals expressed great interest in creating this team. Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture, Mary Pat McGuire asked the following questions:

How can we use the competition to advance actual implementation of GSI here on campus? Do we need to identify funding to support implementation? Should we start a campaign for alum donations for implementation of projects? Can we revisit the 2015 2nd place winning master plan to explore the viability of that plan, and to add to it? Can we revisit the 2017 1st place winning design and explore the implementation of that proposal? What does a future 2022 winning proposal want to achieve for our campus that is new or different from those previous wins - and how can we get everyone on board with implementation?

On September 21, UIUC sustainability representatives met with Coca-Cola and discussed the following:

Attendance: Sarah Carten, Liz Doeschot, Jen Fraterrigo, Dave Guth, Daphne Hulse, Shreya Mahajan, Meredith Moore, Shawn Patterson, Jake Slager, Tyler Swanson, Nicole Tate

• External ,eeting cadence: weekly or biweekly call with the high-level team, and a monthly call with everyone.

• Did Morgan move forward with the spreadsheet of UIUC and Coca-Cola contacts:

  • Meredith: it probably hasn’t been completed.

  • Daphne will complete it.

• Zero waste athletic events (Mercedes Benz stadium is best in class, zero waste in all facets, Atlanta Falcon):

  • Bins and messaging need to be consistent.

  • Journey there is very similar to here. It started with a waste audit and Circular Solutions for a closed loop system:

    • Circular Solutions will get far more technical than Coca-Cola will get.

  • Start off with a zero waste event, and use them as a blueprint. Their goal was a huge marquee zero waste event (March 2020 March Madness).

    • This event didn’t happen. But the time during the pandemic allowed them to work towards it incrementally.

  • Awarded zero waste in June 2022.

• For a zero waste event, consistent branding is going to be the most important part:

  • University of Washington (PAC-12 sustainability award).

    • Turn towards the student body for support, it is much more impactful (not self-serving activation, more engaging).

    • 2 full-time interns that focused on this programming.

      • Leveraged email blasts, athletic websites, season ticket holders to let them know in advance.

      • Created hashtag and shared results after (#CougsGoGreen).

      • Engaged student groups who volunteered to help with execution at informational tables (driving guest awareness, giving sustainable swag, helping with sorting after the events).

      • Opportunity to share videos? Amplify what is happening on campus already.

      • Zero waste plan:

        • Short-term: reach out to student orgs with a need for community service hours (sorority, fraternity, student gov?).

        • Long-term: Circular Solutions could identify gaps in sorting infrastructure and how to address the gaps.

    • Tackle concessions: most visible part of the operation, and it creates a lot of waste by nature.

• Feedback:

  • Jen: challenge is athletics not at the table. We don’t know if they are on board. We don’t necessarily have a good relationship with them at this point in time.

    • Nicole: this is not so unusual. There are a few partners with great cross-functional collaboration on campus. But everyone has different goals, different business units.

      • Recommendations: if the passion is around making it an athletic event (engage students, make an impact), step one might be identifying one point person at athletics to be the “yes”-er not even the “do”-er. If you can position this as “you can save time and energy if you allow us to set forth this plan on our end” can be a convincing point to keep them out of the minutiae of the planning. A second option is to start with a marquee student life event, than a marquee athletic event (convocation, commencement, bid day for Greek organizations)

• Earth Day would allow us a longer lead time.

• Jake will have a conversation with Marty tomorrow about this.

  • Meanwhile, we can try with the Athletics Board.

• Footprint: inside or outside of the event for a green team (swag, green team, get caught green handed).

• In venue messaging: throughout the course of the game, can there be half-time message, every x number of minutes or hours for a brief message? What can the DIA offer us?

  • Digital signage.

• Heaviest lift: strong recycling infrastructure.

• Ryan Squire: Executive in the DIA.

• Don’t Waste It history: concept was ideated 18 months ago. Trademark review and it passed. Ran it through trademark again, some other company in the last 18 months decided to use it.

From: Student Sustainability Committee 
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2022 2:31 PM
To: White, Morgan
Cc: recycling@illinois.edu; Varney, Peter W 
Subject: Re: Extension request for Dump and Run

Hi All,

This Scope Change was approved! Sorry for the late response!

Please let us know if any additional information is needed on our end!

Best,

SSC

11 lawn signs were posted across the campus on September 5, 2022. Only 7 signs were removed after the removed, the remaining were lost.

Deke Weaver, Professor in the School of Art & Design, requested a tour of the Waste Transfer Station, as well as asked the following questions: 

1. Do any of you have a rough estimate of how many plastic water bottles the U of I population goes through in a day (week, month, year)?

2. Would it be possible to collect a few of the plastic water bottles from the recycling center for this project?

Weaver is working on a public engagement piece about the oceans, climate, plastics and interconnected ecosystems and needs approximately 2500-4000 bottles. The project is a whale sculpture named CETACEAN. 

Shawn Patterson from Facilities & Services replied explaining that the waste transfer station acquires 2-3 thousand pounds of plastics each month and will be able to accommodate the professor's need for plastics.

On September 19, UIUC sustainability representatives discussed the following:

• We need to talk with Coca-Cola about best practices from other schools regarding zero waste athletic events.

• Jen: coordinating a phone call with Ohio State University — think about how we (UIUC) can partner with other campus units:

  • Reusable containers, change behaviors through Dining Services folks. Will invite people from the Union. Jen will invite Daphne to this conversation.

• Daphne will be talking to a OSU about general waste practices and athletics specifically as part of the Big Ten & Friends Waste Affinity Survey being worked on.

• Zero Waste Events:

  • Think about our ability to compost.

  • We could do this for the Nov 14 zero waste game, and we could collaborate with the Recycling Center (Scott Tess) — organic waste (food and yard debris), not any compostable goods (no cutlery).

  • In the upcoming call with the Landscape Center, we will discuss the feasibility of this.

  • In the previous zero waste game, Student for Environmental Concerns stood around the bins and said to passersby where to put recycling

    • Will want to get volunteers for our event (iSEE can help with their sustainability network).

    • SSLC would be a great resource.

• Clerk for Zero Waste: how does Jen feel about glass recycling?

  • Shreya, Daphne could communicate how this is done

  • Glass: dining and catering services recycle

  • Glass: athletic events

    • Aaron: Spectra (vendor)

    • In order to be LEED Certified, the State Farm Center committed to recycling concessions

    • Aaron: the majority of what they buy comes in aluminum cans.

      • Specialty drinks like Kombucha may come in a glass bottle.

  • Waste audits: 8 buildings. Small amount of glass coming out of buildings that it isn’t an urgent issue. Glass going into landfill is wasteful, but not poisonous like plastic is

• Picnic table cell phone charging stations:

  • Request by Jake to put together a timeline.

• Recycling bins at DIA — Morgan is unclear about this:

  • 3 bins with Smith.

  • State Farm Center is in progress.

• Sponsorship fee coming from advertisements on campus:

  • If we increase their advertisements around campus, when do we need to start considering that they owe us more for this increased advertising on campus?

  • OSU contract: much larger fund. Their athletic revenue exceeds ours by a couple hundred million a year. They have a 100,000 person stadium, we are around 60,000. Limits our advertising revenue potential.

  • Usually other schools are happy to talk contracts with other schools, unless there is a NDA.

  • No NDA for us. Usually there is some level of confidentiality. Releasing agreement information depends on legal offices at universities.

• Aaron: interested in hearing from OSU, pursuit of refillable bottles. Riff with Coca-Cola? Ramifications of that, if we pursue at UIUC?

  • Reusable containers, glass, plastic, cardboard, continue to talk with Coke about this. Interns digging into research about the different materials. Coke has said plastic better for Earth than aluminum cans. Some sustainability advocates agree. Shantanu Pai had looked at plastic vs aluminum for UIUC campus and came up with: it’s not an easy answer. we could be looking long term, large scale. Our campus could identify the best option for people who don’t have reusable items

• Long term, could Coca-Cola support the dump and run in the spring? Coke pays employees to help with our efforts?

  • Aaron: sounds complicated. company hiring interns with a tie to procurement could be a concern, in terms of tying into a contract. Aaron could look into this more.

  • Shreya suggests volunteers from iSEE or zero waste team. Morgan explains that it’s during finals week, and is not ideal for students.

    • Staff and faculty are usually swamped with graduation events, etc.

• Dump and run: collaboration with Housing, iSEE.

• Illini Union: go through Dave Guth. Ask for student contacts available on Wednesday? Illini Union Board interested in Zero Waste Events (do they have a liaison for this?)

Next steps:

• Proposals for athletic events (based on the contact Jake has) — what’s worked and what hasn’t for other institutions.

• Acquiring materials for Don’t Waste campaign (digital signs).

• Does Jake have revised drawings for the picnic table charging stations?

• We are asking for support from Coca-Cola about our waste audit (September 30 meeting, internal, ISTC). We need a quote. Then we can go to Coca-Cola about financial support and human resources support.

• Coca-Cola said they would do a refreshed timeline for the year about initiatives for the Don’t Waste campaign— we are interested in seeing this soon!

• Clarification on the bin discussion. Are they replacing? Are they sending with the new colors? Is there something going on with providing bins to athletics?

Below is an email exchange between Meredtih Moore of iSEE and Steve Muzzy of Second Nature:

Hi Steve,

Hope you are doing well! I am touching base again to see if there is an update about the status of our carbon credit sales. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Meredith

---------------------------

Hello Meredith,

Thanks for checking in. I've been meaning to follow up with the great news that UIUC credits have been issued and sold. However the reason I have waited is because the broker sold the credits in five batches and they are still waiting on final payment for one batch. Once they have all payments in hand, Second Nature can invoice them for your portion of the revenue. As with the entire process for this round of verification, the sale of credits has for some reason taken longer than expected. We are wanting to issue one invoice for all the batches rather than do multiple invoices - this will allow us to pay UIUC in one lump sum. 

I can tell you the total number of credits sold was 115,836. And pending the final batch sales per/ton you should clear a per ton amount between $6.00-$6.50.

I would expect issuance of UIUCs credit sale revenue check next month.

Best,

----------------------------

Thank you so much for the update, Steve!!

A few members of the iCAP Engagement Team (Ann Witmer, Kathy Adams, Sophie Fox, Mika Lew, and Justin Holding) attended the midterm presentations for ADV 498, the Sandage Project. The course is currently taught by Shachar Meron.

Students that were apart of this 8-week Capstone course presented their brand audits and main suggestions to improve the engagement side of iSEE. The teams brought new and creative ideas to advertise sustainability efforts on campus.

Air Quality Monitoring Station Project Updates:

• The project is still underway as the initial phase of data collection is completed.
• Collected air concentration and weather data at 15-minute’s intervals for a year. The data will be made public for use by campus.
• Past data is being used to develop data filters to prevent outliers and data imputations in the proposed dashboard being implemented on PowerBI.
• Public dashboard to be released to telecast live data through API access before the end of 2022.
• Collected data being used for advanced research at Land Use Evolution and Assessment Lab (LEAM) to identify the potential for low-cost sensor deployment for urban scenario predictions.

Geothermal Urbana-Champaign Project updates:

• Geothermal Urbana-Champaign is an ongoing project with no end deadline.
• John Freitag is the Project Consultant.
• So far, 11 geothermal contracts have been signed for 47 tons of capacity.
• During the first year of the Geothermal Program, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association MREA was involved in helping to start and run the program. 

The marketing resources document of the project is attached.

Solar Urbana-Champaign project update from Scott Tess:

This year, there are currently 25 contracts for 236 kw of solar capacity. That’s 25 more solar systems getting installed in our communities.

Project update from Gabriel Harper-Hagen:

Over the course of the 2022 summer, Gabriel Harper-Hagen interviewed 45 members from the Champaign-Urbana region to understand more about the regions position on biodiversity. This process has created support for the plan from the community. Achievements and gaps were identified in the region along with barriers and recommendations to successfully integrate a biodiversity master plan. Photos of key aspects and sites were gathered. Strategies for achieving goals have been identified and are in the revising process. The plan is currently being constructed as a draft. Background research and information has been collected and used for support on the topic of urban biodiversity. 

WCIA conducted an interview with Sarthak Prasad at the Alma Mater station during the Light the Night event. This interview was published on September 15 and 16.