Preventing trash on surface streets is an ongoing goal in keeping storm drains, and water ways everywhere, clean. Recognition among citizens that litter will go directly into a local steam, and eventually major river, is still low. The University will continue its efforts to educate citizens about the harmful effects of littering on our waterways.

Several efforts in this matter include the annual Boneyard Creek Community Day and planned Storm Drain Murals. 

The 2015 iCAP, chapter 8, objective 1 was, "By the end of FY16, conduct a Request for Proposals process for verified carbon offsets — and undertake the first campus purchase of offsets." iSEE developed and published a Request for Proposals (RFP) for purchasing carbon credits, aka carbon offsets.

UIUC participated in Second Nature's C2P2 program, with a verified carbon credit project for credits issued from 2011 to 2021.

One of the long-term energy commitments set forth in the 2010 Illinois Climate Action Plan was to impose charges for the purchase of renewable energy for facilities that use massive amounts of energy. The National Petascale Computing Facility is the only current facility that falls into this catagory. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds the energy use of the facility. The University plans to impost charges on the NSF for the cost of renewable energy in the next contract negotiations.  

One of the strategies discussed in the 2010 Illinois Climate Action Plan, within the Agriculture theme, was to incorporate carbon costs into food products sold on campus. Incorporating carbon costs into food prices would incentivize the use of local or more sustainable products. This would help the University reach its target of reducing directly related agricultural emissions by 50 percent by 2020.

The mission of the Center for a Sustainable Environment (CSE), formerly the Office of Sustainability (OS) and the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), was to provide assistance to the University in providing national and international leadership on sustainability by supporting education, research, and engagement and to develop and implement strategies for a sustainable campus environment.

Although the international demand for seafood is constantly increasing, many of the types of fish consumed are overfished. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the United States imports over 80 percent of fish to meet consumer demands. Fisheries that are overfish or farm in with environmentally unfriendly practices are greatly contributing to harm caused to wildlife and their habitats.

The funds for the Utility and Energy Services division are determined through a rate budgeting process each year.  The rates include costs such as fuel costs, operating costs, repair and replacement costs, distribution costs, debt service costs, and more.  Utility rate information is published annually on the F&S website.

Hormone-free is a term used to describe food purchases where the meat was not treated with hormones or antibiotics. This is a requirement of the USDA organic seal. The University has taken confinement-free food purchases into consideration in purchasing chicken and pork. All local purchases of these products are confinement-free. Local purchases make up about 1 percent of the total purchases of each product.

Vegetarian-fed is a term that refers to animals that have been fed a specific feed based on vegetable proteins versus a feed that contains animal protein. The animal protein in feed is much less regulated than vegetarian protein, which causes vegetarian-fed meat to be less likely to be contaminated. The local chicken purchases made by the University are vegetarian-fed. Local chicken makes up 1 percent of the total amount of chicken purchased.