The university’s history of formal climate commitments began with an acute focus on one significant agent of climate change: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The vices of global climate change include extreme weather events, air pollution and respiratory ailments, food and water insecurity, land and agricultural degradation, and social injustices. In 2020, curtailing campuswide GHG emissions remains the cornerstone of our strategic plan.

iCAP Team recommendations are a vital part of our community engagement and public input procedures for campus sustainability.  Topical green teams with students, faculty, staff, and community members develop clear and specific recommendations for campus units to enact.  The recommendations are submitted to the iCAP Working Group chair(s) to route, according to the Formal Procedures.  The typical process includes four steps:

1) Submitted: iCAP Team submits the recommendation to the iWG chairs.

The Education iCAP Team was newly formed in the Fall of 2019 by students, faculty, and staff willing to help achieve the University of Illinios iCAP 2015 goals and to contribute to the iCAP 2020. We are aware that students care passionately about sustainability and are looking for it to be incorporated into their college experience.

The members of this committee are charged with presenting projects that meet one of these three education goals:

The Land & Water iCAP Team covers the majority of the objectives for the former ALUFS and WSW Teams, with the exception of the Food objective. This group will focus on land use, agriculture on campus, carbon sequestration, water, and stormwater issues outlined in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP). The goals for the group include conserving potable water, sustainably handling stormwater, and reducing emissions from on-campus agriculture and land use. 

The Energy iCAP Team is a new team combining the efforts of the Energy Conservation and Building Standards and the Energy Generation, Purchasing and Distribution iCAP Teams.

Illinois Street Residence Hall is receiving a renovation, including a new food hall space. The roof of this food hall will have a green roof installed on top. This green roof was added as part of their plan to improve building efficiency and sustainability, and showcase a vibrant residential experience to students, parents, and guests who visit camps, as well install climate control additions.

Atop the Undergraduate Library is a rooftop terrace that features the building entrances, seating, and look down into the lower courtyard. This rooftop also has tree pockets built into the roof, that are supported by building infrastructure featured in the orginal plans for the building. The trees in these pockets make the terrace into a green roof for the UNdergraduate Library. They provide protection from direct sunlight and the evaporation of moisure off of plant material that can cool the buidling's rooftops and lowering energy costs from cooling while increasing the roofs lifespan.

The roofing material on Bousfield is designed to reduce solar heat absorption, keeping the environment cooler and using less energy for air conditioning. In addition to other materials used to accomplish this, small patches of green roof located on the north and southwest sides of the building were also added.  The landscape, including these patches of green roof, is designed with native and drought-tolerant plants to reduce dependency on potable water, as well as reduce the amount of maintenance that needs to be done to support the green roof plants.

This project will improve the waste process around the outdoor campus areas and increase recycling participation. It will do this by increasing recycling bin visibility with improved bins and signage, co-locating waste and recycling bins, and improving the overall layout of waste and recycling bins on campus. There are currently 372 concrete trash bins on campus and an additional 60 made of other materials. Facilities & Services initially proposed to remove all 432 of the bins and to replace them with a total of 133 dual bins.

This project will improve the recycling process in buildings around campus by encouraging sustainable actions and improving the layout of waste and recycling bins within these buildings. Facilities & Services collaborated with ISTC to make an “Indoor Solid Waste and Recycling Collection Assessment”. This assessment determined that the type and layout of collection containers in buildings across campus should be standardized. An update would enable them to be co-located and allow for greater infrastructure consistency.