Publications

The Environmental Change Institute was focused on not only thinking about the challenging environmental problems, but also enabling changes to occur from that new knowledge. Through a generous gift from the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund and additional funds from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences; the College of Business; and the College of Law, ECI was able to fund dozens of initiatives on the Illinois campus, at community colleges and in the Heartland.

Courses & Programs

During the first year of operation Environmental Change Institute awarded $25,000 for the development of new courses related to one of the domains established by the ECI. The following is a listing of courses and course instructors. Follow the link to view the course syllabi.

• Development of a Renewable Energy Law Course (funded 2009) Instructor: Dr. Jay Kesan, Departments of Agriculture and Consumer Economics and Business Administration. Co-Instructor: Dr. Bryan Endress, ACE. Syllabus (PDF)
• Global Warming, Biofuels and Food; Plants and Global Change Instructor: Dr. Andrew Leakey, Department of Plant Biology and Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB). Co-Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Ainsworth, Department of Plant Biology and IGB. Syllabus (PDF)
• Climate and Social Vulnerability: Concepts and Policy Approaches Instructor: Dr. Jesse Ribot, Beckman Institute. Syllabus (PDF)
• Environmental Sustainability – A Global Perspective Instructor: Dr. William Sullivan, Department of Landscape Architecture.Syllabus (PDF)
• Design and Evaluation of Green Roof Systems at the University of Illinois Instructor: Dr. David Kovacic, Department of Landscape Architecture
• LINC Bike Sharing (funded 2010) Instructor: Dr. Bruce Litchfield, Engineering Administration

Landscapes, Sustainability, & Human Health Instructor: Dr. Bill Sullivan, Landscape Architecture

Faculty involved in environmental research requested seed funding for a variety of ongoing projects. Each faculty, and their students, received start up or continuation funds from the Environmental Change Institute.

There are four new research initiatives funded for the 2010 academic year.
 

In the first year, the Environmental Change Institute committed $60,000 in funding for research.  During the first year of operation, 2009-2010, the Environmental Change Institute awarded $125,000 in seed grants for research meeting the interdisciplinary criteria as defined within the Request for Proposals. See file.

Research Projects

Research is central to the mission of the Environmental Change Institute. In order to intelligently move forward in a changing environment, it is crucial to study all aspects of environmental change. Research through the ECI seeks to advance our understanding of global environmental change and offers solutions that enable society to avoid, mitigate or adapt to its effects.

• 2009 Research Projects
• 2010 Research Projects
• 2011 Research Projects

Alvin H. Baum Family Fund

The new Center for a Sustainable Environment (CSE) is being supported by the Alvin H. Baum Family Foundation through a generous gift. The Academic Senate approved establishment of the Center for a Sustainable Environment on December 3, 2012.  

Mission
The Alvin H. Baum Family Fund is committed to bettering the lives of those who live and work predominantly in the Chicagoland area. Priorities established for the Foundation’s giving are health, human services, education, housing, environmental issues and the arts.

Please visit the Baum Family Fund website for more information.

An Excerpt from our Vision Statement

In Fall of 2009 The Strategic Opportunity in Global Sustainability Challenges: A Vision for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was developed in a highly inclusive process that involved the surrounding communities.

The visioning process identified two global grand challenges for which Illinois is well positioned to be a leader:

1) To maintain or restore natural ecosystem function while providing essential human services, and 
2) To sustainably raise the quality of life for the world’s poor to acceptable levels.

There are five goals associated with the vision:

1) Create a new forum for in-depth, cross-disciplinary engagement on the sustainability grand challenges, 
2) Create and implement a sustainable campus operations plan that maintains or restores natural ecosystem, function and supports impoverished communities, 
3) Infiltrate sustainable thinking into campus missions through new education activities,
4) Create incentive programs that spur sustainability activities to meet the above goals, and 
5) Create a viable financial plan for sustainability activities. Task Forces are currently identifying near term actions around goals 1–3, and helping to implement them.

Illinois is also committed to achieving responsibilities of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Energy conservation has been an emphasis as part of the ACUPCC. For example, FY09 was only the second time in 20 years that campus electricity consumption dropped from one year to the next. The progress is attributed to a broadening campus conservation effort, including retrocommissioning, departmental and college reduction initiatives, reduced HVAC system operating hours, and the campus relamping program. Total energy consumed by the main campus at Urbana-Champaign dropped 6.5% in FY09 compared to FY08. Campus consumption is now nearly 10% lower than FY07 on a square foot basis. The FY09 energy reduction resulted in a budget savings of approximately $7.5 million. The goal for FY10 is another 5% reduction (i.e. 5% below FY09).

About the Center

The new Center for a Sustainable Environment (CSE) is now officially established. The Academic Senate had approved establishment of the Center for a Sustainable Environment on December 3, 2012. The formal search process for director of the CSE will start this month.

Both the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) and the Office of Sustainability (OS) have been merged in this new center. Both the ECI and the OS have done outstanding work in the area of environment and sustainability for our campus and their efforts are greatly appreciated. The CSE will build upon the efforts of these two entities.  

Detailed information about accomplishments of the ECI is accessible from the CSE website. We would like you to continue to stay connected to sustainability initiatives and activities on the campus. If you have previously subscribed to the OS Newsletter, you will now receive the CSE Newsletter in its place. If you were previously receiving messages from the ECI, please subscribe to theCSE Newsletter, “like” CSE on Facebook, or follow CSE on Twitter.

The CSE is being supported by the Alvin H. Baum Family Foundation through a generous gift.

The "Procedure for Formulating & Evaluating Campus Sustainability Policies & Initiatives," developed by the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), was officially approved by Chancellor Wise on June 4, 2014.

This document describes the purpose, structure, and tasks of Sustainability Working Advisory Teams (SWATeams), the iCAP Working Group, and the Sustainability Council.

The Sustainability Fellowship to the Allan Lab provided critical support into a novel research program on the effects of green stormwater infrastructure on human risk of exposure to mosquito-borne diseases in urban environments.  These funds helped support the collection of preliminary data, particularly for a large-scale project based in Aurora, IL, where the City of Aurora is retrofitting an older stormwater management system with several new green technologies, including infiltration catch basins and rain gardens.  We are using this infrastructure project as a natural experiment to compare the mosquito-borne disease risk before and after this improvement project, both in the treated area and in a comparable "control" neighborhood.  The Sustainability Fellowship also provided much needed support while pursuing external research funds.  During the award period, we have received two external awards in support of this research.  First, we have received a $30,000 grant from the North Central Integrated Pest Management Center of the USDA to convene a working group to analyze the impacts of green stormwater infrastructure on the ecology of mosquito-borne disease.  Eliana Brown has been invited to join the working group.  Second, we received $158,600 from the Vector Biology panel at NIH to support the ongoing study in Aurora, IL.  All of these accomplishments were made possible due to the generous support of the Sustainability Fellowship.
 

Mr. Willis,

I just want to thank you and the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics for the opportunity to compete in the Gameday Recycling Challenge.  As we discussed, we are committed to reducing environmental impact from the October 25th  game against Minnesota.  What a great way to finish Campus Sustainability Week!

As I mentioned, the event will be take place in the stadium and it is my responsibility to recruit volunteers, set up 3 bin stations, add signage, and replace everything by Sunday afternoon.   Here is a link to the website that I mentioned.    http://gamedaychallenge.org/

I will immediately begin planning out the details. 

Thanks again,

Bart Bartels

Zero Waste Coordinator

The Energy Efficiency Program (EEPs) grants from DCEO were completed this year. 

Grant                    UIeRA                   Title                                       DCEO #                 CFOP                                                     Amount

D6606                    2013-03953         Campus-Gas                      13-290004            1-595061-518002-191200               $670,353.00

D6605                    2013-05653         Campus-Electric                13-410005            1-595060-518002-191200               $1,429,082.00

D6604                    2013-03954         VetMed-Gas                      13-290004            1-595059-518002-191200               $537,743.70

D6603                    2013-05862         VetMed-Electric               13-410004            1-595058-518002-191200               $339,109.11

House Bill 2427, once signed by the Governor, will authorize a $30M renewable energy fund in Illinois.

Replaces everything after the enacting clause. Amends the Illinois Power Agency Act to provide for a supplemental procurement process for the procurement of renewable energy certificates from new or existing photovoltaics. Authorizes the expenditure of up to $30,000,000 from the Illinois Power Agency Renewable Energy Resources Fund for that purpose. Provides that renewable energy certificates from new photovoltaics that are procured pursuant to the supplemental procurement process must be procured from devices installed by a person who meets certain qualifications. Requires public hearings. Provides for a procurement administrator, a procurement monitor, pre-qualification of bidders, establishment of standard contract terms, benchmarks, and contingencies in the event of a default by a supplier. Effective immediately.

see files

F&S requested that SSC funding from FY14 and FY13 for the Campus Bike Center be allowed to be used for the Campus Bike Center in FY15. 

1. There is $2,224.50 remaining of the funding allocation for the “Campus Bike Project” from FY13.  I am requesting permission from the SSC to use these funds during FY15, for staff and student employee costs.  This is not a change in scope, just a schedule change to permit FY15 use of funds.
2. The current funding allocation for the “Campus Bicycle Shop” in FY14 included specific items for the funding in support of the Bike Center.  I am requesting permission to use any remaining funds from this year’s allocation during FY15, for staff and student employee costs.

~Morgan Johnston

Morgan Johnston, Madhu Khanna, Andrew Levy, Scott Tess, and Jane Sullivan met to discuss the potential for a regional climate action plan.  The discussion focused on current efforts underway in the cities.  The unedited notes are attached here.

Evan:

We contacted UA. They're supposed to give us a RFP schedule next week. That should give us a better idea of the timeline.

-Al Stratman

From: Evan DeLucia [mailto:delucia@life.illinois.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2014 5:39 PM
To: McCall, Benjamin
Cc: Stratman, Allan
Subject: SWAT report on energy generation

Ben,

In the absence of a fully formulated SWAT process - iWG and the Sustainability Council have yet to be formed - I forwarded the May 2014 position paper from the 'energy generation' team directly to Al Stratman for consideration.

Under the SWAT process, the teams should be... "developing and recommending specific actions or initiatives the campus should under take to meet iCAP targets..." The energy generation SWAT did a nice job of recommending a specific action that would help meet our targets.

To paraphrase, Al responded...

• the concept of a PPA is meritorious and has potential
• F&S is evaluating this plan
• some of the issues that need to be considered include pricing options, length of agreement constraints, REC pricing alternatives
• F&S is working to obtain hard data on pricing and other details before moving forward

I've taken the liberty of copying Al to be sure I didn't misrepresent his response to me.

Al, do you have any idea of what might be a reasonable time frame would be for completing an analysis of the feasibility, costs, and benefits of purchasing wind power for campus?

Cheers,

Evan

see file

The attached Manual was developed with students and Amelia Neptune over the last few years.  The most helpful part of this document is the liability Q&A that Tina helped create.  I cleaned the file up a bit this morning to fix broken links and check for any glaring errors. 

To bring you and those copied here up to speed, I’ll share a few points that are happening with bike sharing now. 

• The successfully implemented bike sharing on campus is at Kinesiology and Community Health.  They have six bikes for employee use, and wrote a research report about the usage (attached).  They simply have the keys at a desk with a sign-out list, and they send the bikes for maintenance once a year.  The contact person is Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko at Kinesiology.
• This summer, the MTD is planning to start working with campus and the cities to investigate a public bike sharing system, and that conversation is just beginning.  The contact person is Rebecca Nathanson at MTD.
• AITS is planning to set up a departmental bike sharing program, in cooperation with the Campus Bike Center and iSEE.  The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD) is planning to contribute funds towards administrative support for maintaining the bikes.  It is likely that 10-20 bikes will be purchased from “On Bikes,” which comes with a locking and tracking system. 
• Grace Kyung has had numerous conversations with Zagster, which was formed by former staff at Zipcar.  Their system is an all-inclusive turn-key approach, where you pay a set-up fee, then pay a recurring monthly fee for maintenance and oversight.  The set up fee is around $2000 per bike and the monthly fee is about $100 per bike.  The bikes then continue to belong to Zagster.  I did not support the Zagster model for campus employee use, but it may be reasonable for Allerton’s intended use.  If you are interested, their CEO is visiting town on Thursday. 

Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with to get this set up.

Thanks,

Morgan

On May 23, 2014, at 4:07 PM, "McEllin, Tina D" wrote:

Hi Derek,

To start I’m going to refer you to Morgan Johnston, Assoc. Director of Sustainability.    I believe Morgan has a draft manual for depts. to use when setting up programs for employees.   I don’t know if it will address offering this service to the public so you may have to add language to that effect.     

Since you will have the public liability issue I would like to review your draft manual to make sure exposure to the University is controlled as much as possible.  Please feel free to call me with any questions. 

Thank you.

Tina McEllin,  Assoc. Dir.

University Office of Risk Management

247 Henry Admin. Bldg.   M-C 337

506 S. Wright St., Urbana IL 61801

PH 217-333-3113

FX 217-239-6744

Check out our website!   www.uirisk.uillinois.edu

Please note: Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), any written communication to or from University employees regarding University business is a public record and may be subject to public disclosure.

From: Peterson, Derek Eli
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 3:51 PM
To: Kale, PJ; McEllin, Tina D
Cc: Kevin Donovan
Subject: Allerton Park and Retreat Center

Good Afternoon PJ and Tina-

Joe Vitosky said the two of you might be a good start for me, I need some advice. Allerton Park is going to start a Bike Rental, or Bike Share program. I am interested to know if any other units, or if there is any standard documentation that might assist me through this process. We have researched other local entities that do bike share and rental and so we have some standard language, but we will be offering this to the public, so we need to make sure the University if legally covered. As I type I feel underprepared to ask this question, but I thought you might have some advice for me to help get me started.

Thank you for your time-

-- 

Derek Peterson

Associate Director

Allerton Park & Retreat Center

University of Illinois

515 Old Timber Road

Monticello, IL  61856

O 217.333.3287, ext. 203

M 217-778-9111

www.allerton.illinois.edu