This letter is in response to the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Working Group (iWG) recommendation #EG001, which Facilities & Services (F&S) received on August 28.  F&S agrees that the campus should investigate the feasibility of entering into a Wind Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to increase the use of renewable energy for campus. 

Regarding the EG001 general statements about campus energy use, data points, and assessments of anticipated financial impacts, F&S will need more time to compile a useful response.  Regarding the three specific EG001 recommendations, I have consulted with Al Stratman, Kent Reifsteck, and Mike Larson to provide the responses below. 

1. Recommendation: “The campus should undertake a Power Purchase Agreement for wind energy. Based on currently available information, we recommend that the amount be at least 119 million kWh per year (25% of our total electrical usage), but we should aim to purchase as much as we possibly can, given any technical, financial, and contractual constraints.”

From this recommendation, we understand that the iWG recommends entering into a Wind PPA for at least 25% of the FY15 electrical demand.  However, the campus cannot make an informed decision about whether or not to undertake a PPA until the financial impact is fully understood.  A key component of the financial impact is the fully burdened cost of the purchased wind power, which will not be known until after the successful completion of the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.  Therefore, F&S does support pursuing a PPA so the feasibility can be evaluated, but we do not support making a final decision to undertake a PPA until completely evaluating the financial implications.

1. Recommendation: “The effort to secure a PPA should be pursued as quickly as possible. The campus should inform PEI that this is a top priority, and that the review of RFI submittals and the issuance of the RFP should be expedited by all necessary means.”

During this summer, F&S worked with PEI to define a schedule for issuing a Request for Information (RFI) and a subsequent Request for Proposals (RFP).  This schedule shows a completion date of April 2015, so that the PPA could commence with delivery of power on July 1, 2015, at the start of FY16.  We have informed PEI that this is a top priority, along with safety and reliability of the overall campus energy system.

1. Recommendation: “The iCAP Working Group should be kept informed and advised during the process of pursuing the RFI, RFP, and PPA, and given the opportunity to provide recommendations before key decisions are made about the PPA, to ensure that technical and financial considerations are appropriately balanced with our campus sustainability objectives.”

F&S values the advice and input from sustainability advocates on campus.  Therefore, we suggest developing a set of interim checkpoints for keeping the iWG informed as the process unfolds.

To meet our Climate Commitment and achieve carbon neutrality, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.  I look forward to working with the iWG and the SWATeams as this recommendation is pursued.

Sincerely,

Morgan B. Johnston

Associate Director of Sustainability, F&S

Hello SWAT Water,

It was nice to meet all of you this morning, I am excited to be part of this group! We have a lot of great ideas already that I am excited to see implemented. I have created a google drive folder which I will be placing all of our minutes and documents in. I have shared it with everyone, so please inform me if you haven't received the folder in your drive account (it should be labeled "SWAT Water Minutes and Documents").

In the folder, I have uploaded our minutes from this morning and also included any supplemental documentation that we have received thus far for your convenience, including the charge letter and various templates that were emailed from Ben. I also uploaded the power point that I brought up during the meeting. I produced this power point last year when I was contracted by West Point to do some research on Low Impact Development implemented on campuses east of the Mississippi. Hopefully this can be an asset to flip through to see some things other campuses are doing in the east and midwest to reduce their impact on water supply and quality along with links to find more information on the individual projects.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and I will see you all next Wednesday at noon!

Cheers,

Danielle Thayer

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1Drb3ANboRvUUtQSVRpM1ZXUVk

From: Miller, Kristina Ruth
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 8:43 AM
To: Lage, Stephanie M
Cc: Strater, Darren; Alexander, Franklin S
Subject: RE: Air Travel dollars

Hi Stephanie,

Darren Strater asked me to provide you with the information you requested. 

For FY14 Airfare for Chart 1 (UIUC) totaled $14,014,590.  This included extra charges for baggage fees, changed ticket fees and booking charges. 

With JUST the price of the Airfare ticket, the total for Chart 1 (UIUS) totaled $13,671,434.

If you need a formal breakdown, please let me know.

Kristina R. Miller

Analytics and Operations Support Coordinator

University of Illinois

OBFS University Payables

Good morning all,

To get air travel emissions, miles must be entered into the Clean Air-Cool Planet calculator. 

Mileage data is not tracked for our campus. So, I request air travel dollar data from OBFS.  This number has become more reliable in recent years because of the T-card implementation.

Air travel dollars are converted into miles using the passenger yield (fares per mile) data from Airlines for America. 

In fy 2013, dollars spent on air travel was $9,283,105.82.  Passenger yield was $0.1514 (this is fy 12, apparently fy 13 was not yet available).

Divide the two, and you get 61,477,522

Best,

Stephanie

Hello Transportation SWATeam,

Per our discussion today, here are a couple of files and links.

1. The most recent version of the Clean Air Cool Planet emissions calculator.
2. Excerpts from the calculator as related to transportation emissions.  Note the tab called “data for average commute” explains the current math for the average commute distance. 
3. 2007 mode-choice survey details: http://www.ihavemiplan.com/results/index.html
4. 2011 mode-choice survey details: https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-update/mode-shift-update

Both of the mode choice surveys were done in completely different ways and not exactly for the purpose we are using them.  It would probably be good to develop a survey specifically for this calculation purpose that can be administered by the UI in future years.

Thanks,

Morgan

Morgan, here’s the direct link to the resource I mentioned to you on the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) web site. The GLRPPR site is pretty extensive, with many “sector resources,” so I’ll save you the trouble of navigating through them.

P2 Measurement & Calculators Sector Resource: http://www.glrppr.org/contacts/gltopichub.cfm?sectorid=143. 

I don’t know if you were specifically interested in water-related calculators, or if you were using that as a hypothetical example. In any event, there are a few water-related calculators within the list at the above URL. US EPA’s WaterSense program provides a calculator for residential savings, if you replace existing fixtures with WaterSense labelled items. Seehttp://www.epa.gov/watersense/our_water/start_saving.html#tabs-3. This could be a resource to provide students or staff who ask you about such calculators, but be mindful (as you should with any “canned” calculator) of the assumptions made regarding things like utility costs, average number of gallons of water used per year, etc. (http://www.epa.gov/watersense/our_water/how_works.html#assumptions). This particular tool wouldn’t be useful for campus buildings; the Alliance for Water Efficiency provides some guidelines for calculations on school and university campuses:http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/Schools_and_Universities.aspx. 

Dan Marsch mentioned resources for pre-rinse spray nozzles, which could be of interest in dining halls. Probably the best resource on best practices in this arena is the Food Service Technology Center (http://fishnick.com/). Their site includes a spray valve water cost calculator (http://fishnick.com/savewater/tools/watercalculator/) and a water leak cost calculator (http://fishnick.com/savewater/tools/leakcalculator/).

Kishore mentioned the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Their site is at http://www.aceee.org/. He also mentioned EERE, the US DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Their site is athttp://energy.gov/eere/office-energy-efficiency-renewable-energy.

Hope this helps,

Joy

Joy Scrogum

Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist

Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC; www.istc.illinois.edu) 

Co-coordinator, Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI; www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu)

Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR; www.glrppr.org)

ISTC is a Division of the Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

217-333-8948; 1 Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, IL 61820; MC-676

The attached file is a summary of the energy consumption of individual campus buildings in FY14.

Several companies in the area provide a $2 credit for each ink cartridge returned.  These companies include Best Buy, Office max, and Office Depot.  ISTC does not get a credit for the toner cartridges but does return them to the company that they purchased them from. - Bart Bartels

Hi Morgan and Mike,

It was great to speak with you both today and learn more about the revolving loan fund at UIUC. Your green revolving fund would be well-fit for the Billion Dollar Green Challenge.

I have attached an information packet with all you need to know about The Challenge. If you want to sign-on to The Challenge, sign page 15. If UIUC has a $2 million revolving fund, it would cost $1,000 a year to be on The Challenge.

I also attached the document with estimated lifespans for various energy efficiency equipment.

I'll be in touch in early November to get you GRITS trial access, unless I hear from you sooner!

Actually, Morgan, I see that you will be attending the Climate Leadership Summit hosted by Second Nature in Boston next month. Our office is actually down the hall from Second Nature. My boss, Mark Orlowski, will be at the Summit, and could always meet to answer questions. Also, if you want to meet up with me, I could meet by the conference as well. Just let me know if that would be helpful.

Thanks,

Shoshana

--

Shoshana Blank
Senior Research Fellow &

GRITS Project Lead

Sustainable Endowments Institute
A Special Project of
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

18 Tremont Street, Suite 930

Boston, MA 02108

Office: (617) 528-0334

shoshana@greenbillion.org

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pursuing development of a large-scale food waste composting facility on the University’s property, in order to compost food waste from University dining halls.  This interest is precipitated by the commitment made by the University in the 2010 Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP): “The University will commit to… a large‐scale food composting project by 2012.” The new facility will initially receive and process all acceptable pre- and post-consumer food waste from six dining halls on campus, as well as supplementary landscape waste as necessary carbon bulking material from Campus Grounds. In the future, if needed, the system may accept additional landscape waste from the city of Champaign as well as livestock bedding and other animal-related organic waste from the University’s Agricultural and Animal Sciences Departments. The finished product will provide rich compost material to agricultural projects on campus such as the Sustainable Student Farm, as well as to campus grounds and athletic fields.

Background

The University of Illinois is dedicated to composting across the board.  There are three main academic campuses at Urbana, Springfield, and Chicago and two medical campuses at Peoria and Rockford.  We are in communication with all of these sites about the future of composting at the University.  This is an exciting opportunity for the sustainability contacts to work together and support each other in a major sustainability initiative.  Additionally, the University Extension office has a long history of supporting sustainability and has numerous resources for composting operations that we can call upon as the project progresses. 

In 2008, the Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging to become carbon neutral by the year 2050.  As part of this commitment, the University published “Illinois: A Climate Action Plan (iCAP)” in May 2010, describing several projects related to various aspects of campus sustainability.  This document is available online at http://sustainability.illinois.edu/iCAP.html.  

The Procurement and Waste aspects of campus sustainability are highlighted on page five of the iCAP.  It states “The University will commit to a Zero Waste campus policy by 2012, a large-scale food composting project by 2012, and target an increase in the University’s waste diversion rate to 75 percent by 2020.”  The specific project is listed on page 34 item 4 under Agricultural targets, as “Incorporate a large-scale food composting project by 2012.” 

The composting project also has significant support from campus leadership represented by Associate Chancellor Pradeep Khanna, Facilities & Services as represented by Tracy Osby the Waste Management Coordinator and Jack Dempsey the Executive Director, and the students as represented by the Student Sustainability Committee.  The Office of Sustainability works closely with Facilities and Services to assist with the various projects in the Climate Action Plan, and will assist with project implementation and promotional information.

Currently, approximately 1411 tons of food-waste is collected annually from the five major Dining Halls on campus.  Unfortunately, all of this waste is sent to the Clinton Landfill.  There was a small pilot composting project which diverted about five percent of this waste during the short pilot test phase, but it has not been in operation for the last year.  The proposed Large-Scale Food Waste Composting Facility will divert 100 percent of this food-waste and utilize Grounds department landscape waste to generate approximately 2,822 tons of high-quality compost annually.  The compost material will be used solely on University land, including the campus grounds, athletic fields, and the Sustainable Student Farm project.  Future expansion of composting operations could incorporate the animal waste at the Beef and Sheep Facility, which is directly south of the Compost Facility.   At that time, the finished product may be used on certain crop sciences lands.

Student Sustainability Committee Meeting

Union, Leadership Center Conference Room

September 8, 2013

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

1. Determining Executive Positions 5:00-5:10

a. Chair

b. Vice Chair Internal and External

c. Communications

d. Treasurer

2. Working Group Formation and Chair Selection 5:10-5:25

a. Energy

b. Water

c. Food/Waste

d. Land

e. Transportation

f. Education

3. Monitoring and Evaluation 5:25-5:35

4. Subcommittee Formation and Chair Selection 5:35-5:45

a. Executive

b. Finance

c. Bylaws

d. Marketing

5. Bylaws update 5:45-5:50

6. Information meeting 5:50-6:00

7. Adjournment

I am providing an updated schedule for the RFP related to a wind-power PPA for UIUC.  The change reflects a request by one vendor to extend the response period by one week.  Because of that, we have made other slight modifications to target dates for some of the milestones, but the original completion date of April 30, 2015 is maintained.

If you have any question, please let me know.  Dan Mortland

Hello,

Thank you so much for taking out time from your busy schedules to attend the Monthly Certified Green Office Program Meeting last week. I am reaching out to you to let you know that the presentation is available online under Certified Green Office Resources and can be accessed using this link: http://sustainability.illinois.edu/CertifiedGreenOfficeEnroll.html. 

Our next meeting will be Sept. 25, 10-11am in Room 210, Illini Union and you can RSVP for the meeting here. Please spread the word about the program with your peers and encourage them to enroll for the program. 

One of the program participants pointed out to me that the application (excel file) didn't affectively calculate the number of points because the cells weren't referred right in my formula. I am sorry for inconvenience, it has been fixed now and you use the attached application form instead. It is updated on our website as well. Please use the new file instead of the previous one, the only thing we changed is the formula in Cell B61. 

In other news, the iSEE Congress registration deadline is Sept. 5, 2014 and you can register here. And iSEE is looking for self nominations for the Sustainability Working Advisory Teams Consultations Groups to help with rewriting the Illinois Climate Action Plan and you can read more about the opportunity here. Feel free to follow us on Twitter (@sustainILLINOIS) and facebook (https://www.facebook.com/iSEEatUofI) to stay updated about our events and programs. Feel free to tweet at us to share more information about your sustainability orientated events! 

Thank you so much for committing to making the campus community greener. I am really excited to work with all of you in the months to come. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. 

Regards,

Nishant Makhijani

Morgan,

I understand the deadline for submitting the RFI was extended until September 5 based on the requests from some vendors for more time to prepare their responses.

UA / PEI will be forwarding more info and will be looking to keep the overall schedule from being extended.

Thanks

Kent

Hello, team.  The attached list prepared by the State of Illinois may be helpful in our discussion of goals and strategies.  See you tomorrow.  Best wishes. - Warren Lavey