Five talented University of Illinois students from varied disciplines across campus have been selected as the inaugural Levenick Undergraduate Research Scholars at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), giving them valuable hands-on research opportunities in environmental sustainability.
The Levenick Undergraduate Research Scholars will work with a faculty mentor to evaluate a sustainability challenge on campus, analyze data related to the issue, and make recommendations about how to address it. Funded by a generous gift from donors Stuart L. and Nancy J. Levenick, the program offers independent study credit and experiential learning for students, a small financial incentive for mentors, and fresh ideas to improve sustainability on campus.
The students submitted research proposals to advance goals outlined in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP), using data they collect or already gathered by the campus. Their projects will explore ways to expand recycling, improve energy efficiency, reuse waste for sustainable fuel or renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Enrolled in five different colleges across campus, the young scholars bring diverse skills and perspectives to this effort:
Dylan Wombacher, a sophomore in Plant Biotechnology (College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences): A project to quantify single-use plastic waste in labs across campus and identify where a recycling program would have the most impact. Wombacher will be mentored by Isaac Klimasmith, lecturer in statistics and quantitative plant sciences and incoming Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Crop Sciences.
Kristina Muharremaj, a junior in Earth, Society, & Environmental Sustainability (College of Liberal Arts & Sciences): A project examining how the spacing of public lighting affects students’ perceptions of pedestrian safety after dark, and what changes could improve energy efficiency without compromising pedestrian comfort. Muharremaj will be mentored by Nooreen Meghani, Teaching Assistant Professor in the School of Earth, Society, and Environment.
John Han, a junior in Finance and Data Science (Gies College of Business): A project investigating the energy consumption impact of retrocommissioning – operational changes to improve a building’s energy efficiency – to assess whether it delivers meaningful savings and to help prioritize future investments. Han will be mentored by Eric Green, Senior Academic Program Instructor/Adviser at iSEE.
Vivek Limaye, a sophomore in Aerospace Engineering (Grainger College of Engineering): A project to evaluate whether food scraps, agricultural residues, and other campus organic waste can serve as a viable source of sustainable aviation fuel production, by analyzing feedstock availability and bioprocessing performance. He will be mentored by Luis Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
Michelle Martignon, a sophomore in Sustainable Design (College of Fine and Applied Arts): A project developing a framework for a full feasibility study for an anaerobic digester at the U. of I. Dairy Farm, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock manure and advance renewable energy and resource recovery. Martignon will be mentored by Karin Hodgin Jones, Teaching Assistant Professor and Director of the Sustainable Design Program.
Overall, the program is designed to empower students with the critical analytical skills needed to be global stewards of environmental sustainability and engage them in the responsibilities of making our campus and the world more sustainable.
About Stuart L. and Nancy J. Levenick
Stuart Levenick retired as group president from Caterpillar Inc., where he held a variety of executive roles, and he currently holds board positions with several international corporations. He also serves as a member of the board of directors and the development committee chair for the University of Illinois Foundation, and is a member of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics Campaign Planning Committee. Stuart Levenick graduated from the College of ACES with a bachelor’s degree in forestry and furthered his education as a Sloan Fellow, earning a master’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded the University of Illinois Varsity “I” Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and the College of ACES Career Achievement Award in 2018.
Nancy Levenick graduated from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Education, and taught high school English in Toronto before the couple embarked on an eight-move, global career, including assignments in Canada, Singapore, Russia, and Japan, returning to Peoria in 2004. Since then, Nancy Levenick has been an active member of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois Advocacy Board and a board member of WTVP and the Peoria Ballet. Both Stuart and Nancy have been active members of the Heart of Illinois United Way.
Lizet Alvarez uses a water-bottle refill station on campus. All photo credits: Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
On move-in day at the University of Illinois, families haul the essentials of dorm life up stairwells and into residence halls as students settle into their new rooms, carrying mini-fridges, posters, laundry baskets – and often, cases of bottled water.
Professor Jennifer Fraterrigo noticed the plastic bottles while helping her own first-year student move in.
Later, scrolling through social media posts from other parents and students, she saw the same concern repeated again and again: Many families were unsure whether the campus tap water was safe to drink. For them, bottled water felt like the safest option.
But those cases of bottled water add up quickly. Sold in residence halls, retail dining locations, and athletic events in staggering numbers, water bottles are one of the most visible sources of single-use plastic waste on campus.
The experience confirmed what Fraterrigo had learned through her work to reduce plastic waste on campus. As Associate Director of Campus Sustainability at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), she had initiated a survey investigating why students routinely chose bottled water over the tap. Were there enough places to refill a bottle on campus? Was there a broad perception that tap water is unsafe?
Those efforts have coalesced into a cross-campus collaboration by iSEE, University Housing, student researchers, and other units to validate campus water quality, add dozens of new bottle-filling stations, make them more accessible to students, and build trust in the water flowing through campus.
Jennifer Fraterrigo, iSEE’s Associate Director for Campus Sustainability, initiated a survey asking why students choose bottled water over the tap.
The 2022 iSEE survey examined student and faculty attitudes about tap, filtered, and bottled water. More than a third of first-year students said bottled water was their primary source of drinking water, and many believed that bottled water is safer than tap water.
“Some students may come from a place where they never drank the water out of the tap,” Fraterrigo said. “Probably the vast majority of people don’t know where their water is coming from.”
Convenience also emerged as a barrier. Over half of first- and second-year students said there are not enough convenient places to refill a reusable water bottle on campus.
The goal of the survey was to identify why people choose to purchase bottled water and what sustainable interventions could make the greatest impact.
“We saw two directions,” said Fraterrigo, Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. “One, we needed to do some testing to confirm that the quality of the water is safe. And two, we needed to make sure there were more of these bottle fillers available and that campus standards include bottle fillers.”
For testing, iSEE turned to Ro Cusick, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who had already incorporated drinking water analysis into their coursework. After hearing Fraterrigo present on campus plastic waste, Cusick saw an opportunity for a research project to connect classroom learning with a real campus concern. “It was really relevant and interesting to the students,” Cusick said.
Compared to EPA standards, drinking water at the University of Illinois was found to be of very high quality. Click to enlarge image.
During the first year, Cusick’s students collected water samples from a variety of campus buildings, including a few residence halls, the Campus Instructional Facility, and the Illini Union. In the second year, the focus shifted to residence halls specifically. Students tested three key water quality indicators: free chlorine, lead, and copper. The chlorine residual indicates how safely water is being transferred; lead and copper are monitored due to potential public health risks.
The results were reassuring across the residence halls, showing very low levels of lead and copper and healthy chlorine residual, Cusick said. The water on campus comes from the pristine Mahomet Aquifer, which exceeds federal safety standards according to annual American Water testing.
“The quality of the reports was high because the students cared,” Cusick said, and they gained valuable experience collecting and synthesizing data and preparing reports for real campus clients.
“If our data helps students feel safer to drink water rather than purchase bottled water, that’s great for campus sustainability. If there’s less plastic waste, that’s better for students’ health in the long run, too,” Cusick said.
Meanwhile, iSEE partnered with University Housing on a successful application to the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) to fund additional bottle-filling stations. Miriam Keep, iSEE Sustainability Programs Coordinator, worked closely with Housing to write the grant application – a collaboration reflecting how sustainability projects often move forward on campus.
“Anytime you’re working with people from different areas of campus, you’re bringing a diverse set of ideas together,” said Aaron Lewis, Assistant Director for Housing Maintenance Operations. “When you put those together, there can be a great benefit.”
A class led by Ro Cusick, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, tested water samples from residence halls and other campus buildings, with reassuring results.
iSEE and Housing settled on a proposal to provide one bottle filler per 100 students.
So far, 28 new refill stations have been installed as part of the initiative, including eight over winter break, with 10 more planned in the coming months. Housing is funding the labor for installation, while SSC funds cover equipment costs.
The exact configuration will vary in each residence hall building, Lewis said. In complexes like the Florida Avenue Residence Halls, renovation plans include water bottle refill stations distributed across the towers. Other residences have suite-style bathrooms where students can fill up their water bottles with private taps. And newer buildings such as Wassaja Hall have already incorporated water refill stations as part of campus sustainability requirements for LEED Silver construction.
Early usage data suggests strong demand. Many new refill stations include digital counters that track the number of bottles filled, and one station alone logged 40,000 refills from August to winter break. “What we can see from the counters on the bottle fillers installed over the summer is that they have been used extensively,” Lewis said.
As part of the broader initiative, Illinois Athletics also has worked with iSEE to review reusable water bottle policies. Empty reusable water bottles and tumblers are now allowed within stadiums, and water refill stations have been installed to give Illinois fans access to free, sustainable drinking water. “I’d love to see the results from sales data indicating that there’s a decline in bottled water being purchased,” Fraterrigo said.
Infrastructure alone does not change behavior; students need to know where refill stations are located and feel confident using them. iSEE partnered with Facilities & Services to conduct a campus-wide inventory of water refill stations. Using GIS mapping, the team developed an interactive map to replace a static PDF list of refill stations. University Housing is also sharing water quality information from the engineering classes through digital signage in residence halls and QR codes linking to test results.
Illinois student Jack Casey, who was part of the water-testing research project, uses a bottle-filler on campus.
Looking ahead, iSEE hopes to incorporate refill station maps into the Illinois App, making that information even easier to find.
“There’s more to do,” Keep said. “We are trying to get the message out about water quality – it’s hard to change behavior and habits. This is a long, ongoing effort to keep emphasizing the same message.”
For Fraterrigo, this project demonstrates the importance of cross-campus collaboration for sustainability initiatives.
“We brought together a lot of different groups to accomplish what we did,” she said.
“We want everyone in the campus community to feel like they’re part of these solutions. This is a global problem – plastic waste,” Fraterrigo said. “Here’s an opportunity to think globally and act locally.”
The initiative ties directly into iSEE’s zero-waste goals under the Illinois Climate Action Plan – to keep waste out of landfills – and the institute’s efforts to engage and educate campus about sustainability. Engaging students in research connects them to the solutions and data that drive their peers’ decisions about water bottle usage.
Each time a student stops by a water refill station instead of the vending machine, that’s one less plastic bottle purchased and tossed – and one more consumer reassured that it’s safe to turn back to the tap.
– Article by iSEE Communications Intern Sophia Beem
The Dec. 6 Reimagine Our Future awards ceremony was streamed online. From left are Co-Founder Warren Lavey; Professor Holly Rosencranz, M.D., who sponsored and presented the Sustainable Health Solution prize; Professor Donna Tonini, who presented the Climate Change award; Masters of Ceremony Jenny Zhu and Sandra Voskoboynikova; and competition Co-Founder and Coordinator Leon Liebenberg.
A University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team that designed a low-cost sensor to detect water contamination took the top prize at the fifth annual Reimagine Our Futuresustainability competition.
The 2025 competition engaged 313 students from 12 universities across the globe. Over eight weeks, students developed fact sheets proposing creative solutions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, drawing insights from engineering, health sciences, agriculture, architecture, and more.
The overall winners, announced at the Dec. 6 online awards ceremony, won the $2,000 top prize for developing a low-cost, handheld water-quality sensor that uses engineered bacteriophages to quickly detect contamination. Led by Crystal Zhao, a Biochemistry major at Illinois, the team included Marlo Decapo, Valeria Echavarri, Yashwanth Nagarajan, and Torin Schroeder.
Two second-place teams were awarded $1,000 each. Andrea Jimena Arias-Diaz and Ricardo Robles-Fletes from the National Autonomous University of Mexico designed a water-purification system for Xochimilco in Mexico City. And a U. of I. team was honored for its energy-efficient, solar-boosted data-center cooling concept; team members included Akhil Raizada, Logan Justiniani, Anna Aler, Arush Chatterjee, Arnav Pande, Gianna Niecestro, Sarina Shah, and Jack Visnjevac.
The $500 Climate Change Solution award from the Center for Global Studies went to Ayush Thaker, Vidipta Roy, SaarthakJain, and Marcus Lam of Illinois, for a project on surface tiles using microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation.
Two Sustainable Health Solution prizes were awarded, for $500 each: one for a project on care for animals in Ukraine, by a team from the International Humanitarian University in Ukraine; and the second for a medication disposal system designed by students from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.
In total, $8,500 in awards were distributed across 11 teams spanning climate, health, education, transportation, and multidisciplinary innovation categories.
Team leader Crystal Zhao, a Biochemistry major at Illinois, reacts after learning that her multidisciplinary group won the overall award for their innovative “Phage Integrated Environmental Detector,” while Voskoboynikova looks on.
The contest was co-founded by Professor Leon Liebenberg of the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering and Professor Warren Lavey of the School of Earth, Society, and Environment and the College of Law at Illinois.
Lavey praised the students’ ideas for offering hope amid global environmental and social challenges. He also reflected on the lasting influence of the late Professor Robert McKim, who helped establish the competition and urged students and educators alike to take responsibility for sustainability solutions: “We have all contributed to causing the problems, and we therefore all have an obligation to contribute to finding and pursuing solutions,” Lavey said.
Liebenberg emphasized that the competition encourages students to understand the interconnected nature of sustainability challenges, develop innovative responses, and envision how these ideas could be scaled in real communities.
“Our aim is to empower students to combine creativity with systems thinking and to engage boldly with the world’s most pressing problems,” he noted.
EcoReps Ash Sankar, left, and Isabella Chew, right, help with a composting initiative at the annual Welcome Lunch for new Illinois students. Credit: Diana Gonzaga/iSEE
On a warm August morning, a group of students in blue shirts and yellow vests stood near labeled compost bins, chatting with new students about the impact of a single discarded paper cup. On the back of their vests, the words “Sustainability Volunteer” proclaimed their purpose. Welcome Week was in full swing, and the EcoReps were making their first appearance on campus as the faces of sustainability at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
This fall, the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) launched its new EcoReps program, funded by the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC). The program’s mission is to train a group of student ambassadors who will share sustainability knowledge with the campus community — engaging in dialogue and spreading awareness.
“At iSEE, we wanted to do more to reach students and help them get involved in sustainability initiatives,” said iSEE Sustainability Programs Coordinator Miriam Keep, who directs the EcoReps program. “We’ve heard it can be difficult to know where to start. The EcoReps program is one strategy to get the word out to more students and think of new ways to connect with students from a variety of majors and interests. The EcoReps can help students understand why sustainability matters and encourage sustainable practices.”
While the university has many Registered Student Organizations dedicated to environmental causes — as well as majors in environmental science and policy, course offerings across departments that focus on climate topics, and educational programs such as iSEE’s Certificate in Environmental Writing — some students never have the chance to interact with iSEE or these different opportunities. The EcoReps aim to reach students where they are, engaging with people who may not already be connected to sustainability on campus.
EcoReps Maggie Falkenberg, second from right, and Mia Anguiano, right, talk with students at the iSEE table during the Welcome event. Credit: Diana Gonzaga/iSEE
“Getting people to know about the environmental RSOs on campus and get more involved — that’s what excites me,” said Mia Anguiano, one of the EcoReps in this year’s first cohort and a sophomore studying environmental economics and policy. “I really want people to care about the environment and sustainability.”
The 10 student EcoReps represent six different colleges across campus. Not all of these students have been involved in environmental RSOs or programs on campus, but they have a common passion for the environment and want to share that passion with others. This mix of students is intentional, reflecting iSEE’s commitment to expanding the circle of people engaged in campus sustainability.
For Isabella Chew, a junior studying accounting and data science, joining EcoReps was a way to bridge her professional background with her personal values. “I felt a lot of pressure to focus on my major and professional organizations,” she said. “But I wanted to find a way to break into the sustainability space.” The EcoReps program is an avenue for her to connect with like-minded students and faculty and spread the message of sustainability to other students who may be feeling the same way.
The EcoReps jump-started their semester of learning and teaching at Welcome Week. They staffed a composting initiative at the Welcome Lunch — a zero-waste event — and tabled at Quest for Success and Quad Day. Chew was happy for the opportunity to connect with new students. “It’s really nice to be able to welcome the freshmen and set up an expectation of what the university cares about,” she said.
During these events, the EcoReps have conversations with students about iSEE and the opportunities for environmental engagement on campus. Recently, they have also started presenting at first-year orientation classes in different departments, such as HK 100, Orientation to Kinesiology. “It was inspiring,” Anguiano said. “We were able to go to an orientation class outside the sustainable realm.”
Left to right, EcoReps Isabella Chew, Yesenia Adrianzen, and Mia Anguiano at the September ILO event. Credit: Sophia Beem/iSEE
The EcoReps are developing the content of these presentations to suit the interests and practical applications of the students they are talking to.
“Even if they’re not sustainability majors or in environmental RSOs, they can still learn about this and implement it in their professional tracks,” Chew explained. “People are really focused on professional goals, and sometimes sustainability isn’t part of that. But it should be.”
For both Anguiano and Chew, the program has been an opportunity for growth. “Learning everything has been exciting,” Anguiano said. “I’d like to see EcoReps go out to more classes and reach more students, not just freshmen.”
Chew added, “EcoReps was a wake-up call for me. If I care about this, I want to be more actionable about it and help others understand how they can be involved.”
Beyond class presentations, the EcoReps are organizing events such as iSEE’s Illini Lights Out and Campus Trash Pickups. At the same time, they are learning about the initiatives the university has in place through hands-on experiences like touring the campus Waste Transfer Station. Through this process of awareness and education, the EcoReps are learning how to tailor recommendations to students. There is something for everyone in the world of campus sustainability opportunities.
“The students are very motivated,” Keep said. “Next semester, we expect EcoReps to take on even more of their own ideas and initiatives.”
The EcoReps are spreading the word, creating a campus culture where sustainability is accessible and relevant. At iSEE, the message is clear: Small improvements matter, and every member of the campus community has a place in building a greener Illinois.
— Article by iSEE Communications Intern Sophia Beem
EcoReps join other volunteers at the September 2025 iSEE Campus Trash Pickup at the Siebel Center for Design. Credit: Diana Gonzaga/iSEE
Meet the EcoReps!
Yesenia Adrianzen
I’m a senior studying Earth, Society, and Environmental Sustainability with a minor in Legal Studies. I’m very passionate about environmental issues and currently serve on the Student Sustainability Committee and as the DEI Officer for Students for Environmental Concerns. In my free time, I enjoy reading, watching horror movies, hiking, and visiting the university’s plant conservatory.
Mia Anguiano
I am a sophomore from Plainfield, Ill., studying Environmental Economics and Policy, with minors in Legal Studies and Political Science. I have always had a huge passion and love for the environment, and that is what made me want to become one of U. of I.’s EcoReps! I can’t wait to make a difference on campus and get students more involved!
Tori Arduini
I am a third-year Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences (NRES) student and one of your EcoReps at the University of Illinois. You can find me at Club INSECTA, Life Drawing Club, and Inline Insomniacs. I aim to help foster a community of students who are excited to learn about sustainability and contribute to greener campus initiatives! Fun fact: I have pet giant cave cockroaches that I adopted from a U. of I. animal biology lab.
Isabella Chew
I’m currently a junior majoring in Accountancy + Data Science. I became an EcoRep because I’ve always been interested in sustainability and I wanted to make a positive impact on campus. I’m especially focused on sustainable fashion and exploring ways to improve our everyday habits!
Maggie Falkenberg
I am a sophomore majoring in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Media and Sustainability, Energy and Environment. In addition to being an EcoRep, I am involved in many things on campus, including Legend Dance Company, Student Aircraft Builders, and my other job as an ESTAR tour guide. I look forward to spreading awareness on the different sustainability measures on campus!
Jess Gruettner
I am a senior majoring in Earth, Society, & Environmental Sustainability (ESES) with a minor in Geology. I was motivated to become an EcoRep because it aligns with my passion for community engagement and environmental education. In this role, I turn my academic knowledge of sustainability into real-world action by connecting with others, promoting on-campus sustainability, and building the outreach and communication skills that support my future career.
Ash Sankar
I’m a sophomore at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying Interdisciplinary Health Sciences on the pre-med track. On campus, I’m involved with Illinois Enactus, where I serve as a Project Manager, and I’m also involved with the Law and Medicine organization. I am passionate about sustainability, health equity, travel, and music!
Elliott Topp
I am a junior majoring in Materials Science and Engineering and minoring in Spanish and International Engineering. I aim to work on sustainable materials in the future with a focus on accessibility for disadvantaged communities. I’m excited to be an EcoRep to connect with other students on campus about sustainable practices. In my free time, I enjoy working in youth engagement programs, hiking, watching & playing sports, and reading.
Taylor Wallace
I am a Sustainable Design major who sees sustainability as a lifestyle shift. I became an EcoRep because I like connecting with people in real ways, and helping them see how small, practical changes can actually make life easier and greener. For me, sustainability isn’t about perfection; it’s about practices we can be proud of.
Lisa Zhou
I am a sophomore majoring in Accounting + Information Systems. A fun fact about me is that I love upcycling old clothes into trendy new styles.
Tim Mies posing next to the 15kW solar array panels at the Energy Farm. Mies, along with his diligent team, maintains the many research operations at the Energy Farm. Credit: Anjali Yedavalli
Among the University of Illinois’ most impressive living laboratories is the Energy Farm, a 320-acre farm plot on the South Farms supporting sustainability research. The farm is a testbed for a broad range of renewable energy sources; researchers across many disciplines are studying how to scale up and improve the effectiveness of these renewables, hoping to revolutionize sustainable energy production. Two recent research installations – an underground geothermal “battery” and an agrivoltaic solar array – are providing energy for the farm.
The Energy Farm was founded in 2007 as part of the Energy Biosciences Institute. Tim Mies, Director of Energy Farm Operations, explained that the original focus of the farm was analyzing second-generation biofuel crops and perennial grasses as a fuel source, which eventually expanded to renewable energy research as a whole. This bioenergy research has continued under the CABBI grant, funded by the Department of Energy.
By layering complementary energy technologies on top of each other, the farm generates much of its own energy. It features underground geothermal installations, bioenergy crops growing on the surface, and solar arrays sitting above the ground.
The Energy Farm’s UTB was installed in April 2023. Credit: Julie Wurth
In late 2022, the Illinois Green Fund supported a geothermal research collaboration between the University of Illinois and the Oak Ridge National Lab, which led to the installation of an underground geothermal battery (UTB) at the Energy Farm. This novel geothermal system features a water reservoir buried 20 feet underground that is tied in a geothermal loop. The UTB has a large thermal capacity and uses the ground’s stable temperature to provide a heat source or heat sink that is hotter or colder than the ambient air. Using a heat pump, this geothermal system can heat or cool a building. The key innovation of the UTB is that it can store thermal energy for later use, allowing it to accommodate the fluctuating thermal demands of a building.
The exchange of energy within this system is controlled and automated, which makes the installation very efficient. Andrew Stumpf, geologist and principal investigator at the Prairie Research Institute, described what makes this system unique.
“With this advanced installation, we can store thermal energy during times of lower demand and recover it as demand increases again. Through this mechanism you optimize the system’s efficiency,” said Stumpf.
The geothermal system at the Energy Farm, which began operation in May 2024, had immediate effects. Mies said he felt cooling almost instantly.
The primary purpose of the UTB is to provide heating and cooling, but the researchers also use this installation to study whether this new type of geothermal system can become mainstream. Although the farm’s office space is regulated by the geothermal installation, the adjacent laboratory space is heated by a propane furnace and cooled by electric-powered . An auxiliary part of this research project is to compare the efficiency of both systems. The hope is that geothermal technology can contribute to long-term sustainability goals on the farm. While the upfront cost of installing a geothermal system is higher than other renewable energy systems, the reduction in energy use is significant, so the cost recovery is expected to be quick.
Meanwhile, the Energy Farm’s main greenhouse is heated by a biomass boiler, which uses dried miscanthus as the fuel source. Instead of burning propane, this boiler turns the prairie grasses grown and harvested at the farm for research into heating.
In addition to these green installations, the Energy Farm is also home to a new 15kW solar array. The energy it generates is used by the farm, and excess energy is sold to the grid.
This array, with panels recycled from a campus building, is part of the SCAPES Agrivoltaics project, supported by a grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. SCAPES (Sustainably Co-locating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems) examines the capability of agrivoltaics, a practice that integrates and co-locates typical agricultural practices with solar electricity generation. Carl Bernacchi, Professor of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at the University of Illinois and a principal investigator on the SCAPES project, provided insight into the environmental and ecological impacts of agrivoltaics research.
Because of its inherent constraints, agrivoltaics is an ideal framework for understanding crop responses to the environment, Bernacchi said. For example, the panels affect how much light reaches the crops. They also compete for space and slightly alter the temperature and humidity in the surrounding environments, making this a unique integration of the agriculture and energy sectors.
Full view of 15kW solar array at the Energy Farm. Bernacchi lightheartedly refers to the project as “Hortivoltaics” due to the presence of smaller, high-value crops located below the panels. Credit: Anjali Yedavalli
The array at the Energy Farm is layered on top of a plot of high-value crops. “I call it ‘hortivoltaics’ because it’s focused on horticultural crops like tomatoes and kale,” Bernacchi said. “It adds a whole dynamic level of diversity to the type of systems that we can study.”
In addition to this existing solar installation, SCAPES is building an 88kW array at the Energy Farm for the 2025 field research . This new, larger array will help researchers study agrivoltaics at a more realistic scale, paving the way for the commercial adoption of this practice.
All of the projects and initiatives at the Energy Farm represent the modern-day cross-disciplinary nature of sustainability research. Engineers are working with economists, educators, and biologists to make the technology of tomorrow happen today.
The Energy Farm employs two full-time staff who support the research being undertaken by undergraduate and graduate students, as well as their collaborative researchers. Students have played a key role in the success of these projects.
Regarding the geothermal research at the Energy Farm, Stumpf said, “Having a DOE National Laboratory and students involved creates a learning environment capable of providing numerous opportunities for collaboration and learning. We want this to be a living laboratory for students and faculty to use and benefit from.”
To Mies, running the Energy Farm is a team effort. “Our job is to work with researchers to bring concepts to reality,” he said. “When they say, can we do this? What do we need to do this? What’s it going to take? That’s where we come in.”
In the corporate world, the double-L in “LLC” is an acronym for “Limited Liability.” At the University of Illinois, “LLC” stands for “Living and Learning Community.” And one specific community, the Sustainability LLC, is fighting for the planet’s environmental future — a global issue that everyone is liable for.
By surrounding young people with fellow sustainability-minded individuals — all living in one residence hall — the Sustainability LLC complements their education with learning opportunities that go beyond any typical curriculum. Each year, events that reach wide audiences (an annual film festival), new educational programs (a book club for 2024), and multiple field trips (St. Louis, anyone?) are designed to impact lives and, of course, the Earth.
That starts with campus’s very landscape — specifically, the façade and sides of Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall (LAR), where LLC members tend native plants. The garden is the main locus for the LLC’s flagship educational experience, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES) 294.
“The course kind of has two phases to it: Eight weeks in the fall, eight weeks in the spring,” Sustainability LLC Director Adam Betz said. “And it’s a hands-on course. There’s actual gardening that goes on — planting and weeding and all sorts of other things under the guidance of a plant expert.”
“Hands-on” may mean literal sunshine and daisies, but it carries the lesson that sustainability is impossible without hard work. “I remember we had this giant mulch pile,” former Sustainability LLC Intern and junior Bioengineering major Peter Nardulli said, “and it took us so many hours to get it distributed. I spent my last night at the LLC outside shoveling mulch.” Pause. “It was fun.”
Above: Tending to the gardens around Lincoln Avenue Residence Halls (LAR) is part of the Sustainability LLC-exclusive course, NRES 294. Top: Sustainability LLC students set up next to the Hallene Gateway for the annual “Light the Night” campus bike event.
Living and Learning Communities started sprouting up at American universities as a way to transform ordinary dorms into residence halls that provide more than just a place to sleep and eat. Or, as Betz puts it: “The idea of an LLC is the synthesis between learning objectives and students’ academic interest within a residence hall setting. Each LLC has its own academic theme.”
The first LLC at the University of Illinois was also among the first in the country: In 1971, a small LLC in Allen Hall called “Unit One” was established as a group geared toward Art & Design students. Today, Unit One is among the largest of the university’s 10 Living and Learning Communities.
The Sustainability LLC is one of the university’s newest, established in 2012. This year, it has 24 students, 18 of whom are new freshmen. While it’s a smaller cohort than usual, Betz is enthusiastic about being able to focus more energy on each student.
“Let’s focus on a smaller crop of students, students who are really interested in all of it — really interested in doing the native plants course, going on field trips, and getting involved with the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP). I think the theory here is that less is more,” he said.
For Betz, who also oversees the Innovation LLC, 2024 is his first year as the Sustainability LLC’s Program Director. With his appointment, the LLC started to see immediate, important upgrades.
For one, the LLC was moved from LAR down the street to the Illinois Street Residence Halls (ISR). There, the LLC is building a brand new lounge space in what used to be the ISR library. Once that space is refurbished, Betz hopes to use it for the Sustainability LLC’s new book group. This year’s read: What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care by Elizabeth Cripps.
Another text Betz mentions often is Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. Among other “nudges” in the book are small actions to increase sustainability, like changing the design of bins or light switches to promote recycling or energy-saving habits. With his background in philosophy, Betz is consulting this text to kickstart a future environmental ethics course for the LLC.
Also new this year was a field trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. “We got special tickets for a sustainability exhibit in the gardens,” Betz said. “It showed how much they’re repurposing plant waste and how they go about maintaining the grounds in eco-friendly ways. The gardens also have little eco-friendly nudges and methods of persuasion for getting people to appreciate sustainability, plant life, and natural aesthetics.”
For Nardulli, every educational component of the LLC — the academic course, the gardening, the field trips — seemed like the natural next step when coming to college. “Ever since I was in middle school, I would go volunteer at the Forest Preserve near my house because I like the outdoors. I’ve always been looking for ways to keep nature going, making sure we’re not just destroying it all,” he said.
Evidently, there were multiple people who felt similarly. According to Betz, one of the major draws to joining an LLC is “you’ve immediately got at least this much in common with the people you’re going to be living with. There’s enough intersections of interest that you have a bond right away.”
The concept seems to work. “I met one of my roommates I just moved in with through the LLC,” Nardulli said. “I think it’s very useful for forming friendships. At the start of college, everybody comes in looking for new people and groups. And I think the LLC is just a really good method of doing that.”
A common love for the environment, and a shared drive to protect it, may be something that every student at the University of Illinois Sustainability Living and Learning Community possesses, but its reach goes much further.
For the past seven years, the LLC has hosted an annual film festival around Earth Day that screens so-called “sustainability shorts.” Each short runs about 10 minutes, must focus on a sustainability topic, and can be submitted to one of four categories: Documentary Short, Narrative Short, Music Video, and a new category this year exclusively for University of Illinois students. The festival is an unequivocally global event for a very global issue.
Sustainability LLC students get their first introduction to the LAR gardens during Orientation Week 2024. All credits: Adam Betz
“Last year we got submissions from Great Britain, from Ukraine, from across the United States,” Betz said in late September, “from Mexico, from South America, submissions from Kenya and other African countries.” This year seems to be no different. “So far, we’ve gotten 70 submissions and it’s been open five days. These are going to continue to pour in and this is all run through the LLC.”
In 12 short years, the Sustainability LLC’s outreach has stretched from the small gardens surrounding Lincoln Hall, to the larger Midwest, and into the world that it’s trying to protect. Still, its greatest impact is on its students.
When asked if the Sustainability LLC has prepared him to tackle environmental issues, Nardulli said, “It is sometimes stressful just to think about the future and what the whole planet will look like. But I feel like a lot of people are involved and a lot of people realize that this is an issue. And I think we’re smart enough as a species to be able to solve it.”
— Article by iSEE Communications Associate Gabe Lareau
Students at the August Welcome Celebration fill up their reusable water bottles at the ‘Quench Buggies.’ Credit: Miriam Keep/iSEE
In August, the University of Illinois welcomed the Class of 2028 — more than 9,000 students strong. Thanks to Zero Waste efforts championed by iSEE and its campus partners, this record freshman class started the semester off sustainably during events like the New Student Convocation Welcome Celebration and the Quest for Success.
To help achieve objectives prescribed in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP), iSEE has been identifying areas around campus to decrease waste and increase overall sustainability. “We first look at campus data where large amounts of waste are generated. Then we work with our partners to figure out what solutions are possible and work best for our campus,” iSEE Sustainability Coordinator Miriam Keep said. “Partnerships make all of this happen.”
In what was a typical sweltering August, water accessibility was a top priority. On Friday, Aug. 23, Student Affairs’ New Student & Family Experiences (NSFE) office hosted a Welcome Celebration, directly after the New Student Convocation.
Thousands of new Illini flocked over to Lot 31 where, during any normal year, thousands of plastic water bottles would have been chilling, ready to be used once and then discarded. This year, leading up to the Welcome Celebration, NSFE coordinated with resident advisors to remind freshmen to bring reusable water bottles to the event in order to cut down on plastic waste.
Around Lot 31, various water tanks — branded as “WaterMonsters” and “Quench Buggys” and provided by the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) and Student Affairs — dotted the grass. The WaterMonsters — six feet tall with a 125-gallon capacity — only filled up water containers that were either reusable or recyclable. Any student who arrived at the Welcome Celebration without a reusable container was given a recyclable aluminum container provided by Coca-Cola, a longtime campus partner in promoting recycling efforts.
“The iCAP recognizes that pursuing zero waste demands more than just recycling,” F&S Zero Waste Coordinator Daphne Hulse said. “Our programs to eliminate unnecessary waste at large events reflect that philosophy.”
Even after the students were dismissed, college by college, and all the recyclables had been collected, can by can, one WaterMonster was reused at the next day’s Quest for Success — a scavenger hunt-like event that familiarizes new students with campus resources. During that event, the WaterMonster provided a concrete example of reducing waste directly next to iSEE’s station.
Students make use of a ‘Water Monster’ station. Credit: Miriam Keep/iSEE
The WaterMonster also paired nicely with the QR code sticker given out by iSEE at Quest for Success which links to a map of more than 700 refillable bottle “hydration stations” around campus. The map, updated recently by Facilities & Services (F&S), reflects a longtime relationship with iSEE and a commitment to reducing plastic waste and improving campus sustainability.
“The data tell us one of the biggest sources of single-use plastic on campus is water bottles,” Hulse said. “We inventoried all campus facilities and recently upgraded our map identifying where water filler stations are available to an increasingly user-friendly interface.”
Soon, new students staying in older housing will also see hydration stations pop up right at their doorstep. Partnering with University Housing, iSEE was awarded a grant from the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) to install more than new 50 filling stations in residence halls across campus.
“A lot of our newly renovated residence halls like ISR have plenty of these filling stations,” Keep said. “This way, older facilities can have those as well. We want to make it easy for all students to choose reusable water bottles over disposable ones.”
After Welcome Week and into the first week of classes, all eyes turned to Memorial Stadium for the Fighting Illini’s first football game of the season against Eastern Illinois University (EIU). As it happens, it was also the first football game in the stadium’s 100-year history where you could take any empty reusable water bottle into the stands with you. Previously, only clear bottles were allowed.
According to F&S, gameday refuse adds up to 20 tons of waste into the campus system, with most of it being recyclables. That’s why DIA’s efforts to increase the amount of recycling bins around the State Farm Center and Lot 31 — any tailgater’s dream — mark another sustainable victory in its partnership with iSEE to reduce waste as part of the iCAP.
DIA will team up with iSEE and F&S again this season for more Zero Waste tailgates, hoping to surpass the 2,560 pounds of recyclables collected last year. Further down the line, iSEE has helped DIA set even bigger sustainability goals.
“What we hope to get to in the future is that we won’t have to do as many Zero Waste events because it’ll just be automatic for people,” Senior Associate Athletics Director Marty Kaufmann recently told iSEE. “Over the course of several years, we’ll be able to be in a place where we’ll have our fans trained for recycling and sustainability that Zero Waste events are truly every day.”
As iSEE celebrates Sustainability Month and begins to draft a new version of the iCAP in 2025, recognizing these successes toward campus Zero Waste objectives is paramount. Cross-campus collaboration, consistent messaging, and individual efforts are integral to establishing a “culture of zero waste” — from the university’s largest departments all the way down to each one of the 9,000 new Illini.
— Article by iSEE Communications Associate Gabe Lareau
The University of Illinois community has made steady progress and encountered a fair share of challenges on the road to its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — a target set out by the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP). However, keeping that central goal in mind, some of iCAP 2020’s many objectives need updating; Illinois today is a far cry from the Illinois of four years ago.
The iCAP 2025 update is less than one year away. Because campus has changed drastically, and because of that looming deadline, the Institute for Sustainability, Energy & Environment (iSEE) is asking campus to help identify priorities for iCAP 2025. A series of input sessions will be held throughout the fall to give students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to offer suggestions and learn about the objectives that the iCAP teams are considering, as well as the progress they have made so far.
5 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, Room 94 Illinois Street Residence Halls (ISR)
5 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, Room 2025A Student Dining and Residential Programs Building (SDRP), Ikenberry Commons
This past spring, iSEE used events like the new “Sustainapalooza” celebration and the Green Globe Awards to gather input on iCAP 2025’s top priorities. To acknowledge that feedback, and provide some background on what’s already been accomplished, here are the top answers from hundreds of students, faculty, and staff on what each iCAP Team’s charge should be.
Energy: More renewables
“More renewable energy” was one of the most common suggestions, and for good reason. It is the single most effective way the university can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Currently, around 75% of campus energy is supplied by fossil fuels — natural gas and a small amount of coal — burned at Abbott Power Plant. The rest is either purchased directly from the grid or generated through renewable energy. Today, 13% of campus electricity is generated directly by the University’s two solar farms, a smattering of rooftop solar and geothermal power, and a Power Purchase Agreement with the Rail Splitter Wind Farm.
That percentage is steadily increasing, keeping the campus on track to meet its goals. Even more clean energy is on the way, too. A “Solar Farm 3.0” is in the works and, if campus is to fulfill its clean energy objectives, it must be online and generating 30,000 MWh/year by 2030.
Above: Students talk with iSEE’s Jenna Shaefer about their suggestions at the iCAP 2025 Kickoff in April. Top: Hundreds of students, faculty, and staff turned out for the event, held in conjunction with the Green Globe Awards at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building. Credits: Julie Wurth/iSEE
Implementation: Fossil fuel divestment
Based on the recent iCAP feedback, “divest/more sustainable investments” was the number one response from the university community.
Objective 9.1 of the 2020 iCAP details that the university must draw up a plan to rescind its investments from any companies that “profit from the extraction, transportation, or combustion of coal, petroleum, or natural gas.” No plan for fossil fuel divestment has been developed by the Audit, Budget, Finance, and Facilities Committee of the University of Illinois System for approval by the Board of Trustees, who make final financial decisions.
For iCAP 2025, respondents recommended that the Education and Engagement Teams promote sustainability not only through university events and programs, but also in campus classrooms.
This past fall, the Engagement Team worked with the Office of Civic Life to provide a large number of volunteers at the university’s Zero Waste football and basketball games. The team also suggested collaborating with other student organizations to staff events like Green Quad Day and Sustainapalooza with even more volunteers, thereby increasing outreach and spreading awareness. Looking ahead to iCAP 2025, the Engagement Team is hoping to further educate campus about progress made on iCAP objectives as well as promote Greener Campus Certifications — steps that any campus office, event, or chapter can take to adopt sustainable practices and reduce their environmental impact.
Thanks to the Education Team, the campus is closer than ever to incorporating a sustainability option into the general education curriculum. And iSEE’s Environmental Leadership Program — which includes trips to local city councils, the state Capitol, and Chicago businesses — has seen massive success and will run for its fifth year this fall.
Resilience: Work more closely with the local community
Feedback that fell under the Resilience Team’s jurisdiction fits in well with its overall approach: coordinating with community partners.
The iCAP Resilience Team is unique; some of its members are representatives from Champaign, Urbana, and Savoy. Because climate change’s effects are so wide-reaching, local collaboration is paramount.
And that collaboration has paid off. The university, its three surrounding municipalities, and the Champaign County Soil and Water Conservation District formed the Champaign County Stormwater Partnership, which has identified best practices to reduce stormwater damage. This played an integral role in both Champaign and Urbana increasing their stormwater fees to better adapt to more extreme weather.
The Resilience Team has also helped spearhead the trans-municipality Urban Biodiversity Master Plan developed by Illinois Extension. This plan would not only benefit native species by planting trees, but also help marginalized and increasingly susceptible communities by fortifying them against the worsening effects of climate change. The campus intends to continue these kinds of collaborative opportunities to address shared sustainability issues in the community.
Transportation: Fewer gas-powered vehicles
Feedback for the Transportation iCAP Team was expansive, but it all falls under one umbrella: less gas on campus.
Reducing the amount of internal combustion engines on campus begets a two-pronged approach: Encourage people to ditch their cars and, if vehicles are necessary, require that they run on electricity.
For individuals, walking, bicycling, and taking public transportation instead of driving drastically reduces emissions. To encourage that, the Transportation Team has stuck close to the 2014 campus bike plan and updated it this year. Those efforts have paid off: Illinois is a certified Bicycle Friendly University and is set to see only 50% of faculty, staff, and students use cars on campus by 2025.
For larger entities, the Transportation Team’s recommendation for an Electric Vehicle Task Force has been fulfilled by the University Parking Department. The Task Force will work with various campus departments, colleges, and divisions to convert their fleets entirely to EVs.
Zero Waste: Increase recycling
Suggestions for the iCAP’s Land & Water Team objectives.
Considering that, from a very young age, most University of Illinois students today were taught that throwing something away was bad, it’s obvious why “increase recycling” was one of the most frequent suggestions.
And, if you need an obvious visual for how the iCAP has helped do exactly that, look no further than the giant green bin in Lot 31 across from Grange Grove. It was the final destination for over 2,500 pounds of recyclables generated by Illini fans from two Zero Waste basketball games and two football tailgates.
The Zero Waste Team is looking to increase not only zero waste athletic events but also the amount of “3-bins” that separate waste into paper, plastic, and trash. These receptacles intercept waste at the source, easing the burden from the Waste Transfer Station’s eight sorters and ensuring that less trash ends up in the landfill. Currently, there are 64 around campus; the goal is 150.
Land & Water: More native and pollinator-friendly plants
Just behind expanded recycling efforts, “a greater number of native and pollinator-friendly plantings” was the next most popular response for iCAP 2025.
Every year, 300 new trees are planted on campus, all of them native. Each tree, too, is a natural offset that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air for free and provides much-needed shade for long walks to class.
Not as numerous, but still surpassing the iCAP’s pollinator-friendly landscapes objective, are the many pollinator pockets around campus: 45 in total. These areas, lush with flowers and native plants that benefit bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, will be more than enough to re-certify UIUC as a “Bee Campus USA.”
In the near future, students and bees will be busily buzzing alongside each other, and — because more pollinator-friendly plants was one of the most popular pieces of feedback for the iCAP — helping each other out, too.
— Article by iSEE Communications Associate Gabe Lareau
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is well past the halfway point from Illinois Climate Action Plan 2020 to iCAP 2025. It’s time to check in on each of the iCAP chapters to gauge progress, address the challenges our campus faces, and celebrate some achievements. This month, iSEE Communications Intern Gabe Lareau examines the Engagement chapter to see what the university is doing to immerse campus in a culture of sustainability. He also recaps the progress and challenges as we begin the drafting process for iCAP 2025 — which will mark 25 years (or hopefully less) until campus reaches carbon neutrality. View the full series >>>
More than 4,000 students took part in the Spring 2024 “Sustainapalooza” organized by the Student Sustainability Leadership Council and co-hosted by iSEE, the Student Sustainability Committee, Students for Environmental Concerns, and the Illini Union Board. The event featured tabling by sustainability organizations, iSEE’s free clothing swap, a sustainable art show, food, and music. Credits: Diana Gonzaga/iSEE Communications
They may seem like basic questions:
Do you know how composting works?
Are you up to date on what can be recycled, and what can’t?
What do you know about the Illinois Climate Action Plan?
But for taking the pulse of sustainability literacy at the University of Illinois, these questions are vital to see how knowledgeable, up to snuff, and aware the campus actually is. Or, in another word, engaged.
For Codie Sterner, the word is literally in the job description. Appointed last year as Student Affairs’ Coordinator for Student Sustainability and the Engagement iCAP Team Chair, he knew that crafting a sustainability survey for university staff was of “exponential importance” early on. The Education Team is preparing a similar survey for incoming students.
According to Sterner, there’s a knowledge gap on campus: “There’s been a ton of interest with sustainability literacy. We’ve been getting questions like, ‘Hey, we would love to know what to do to make this a green event, but we actually don’t know what to do.’ ”
The sustainability literacy survey for university staff, due to be released soon, is just one of the main successes in the engagement realm. Others — successfully working with the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) to join the Green Sports Alliance, increasing the number of Green Events certifications, and making regular updates to the iCAP Portal website — have been paramount to fulfilling the team’s iCAP 2020 objectives.
But, as with every other iCAP chapter’s objectives list, challenges still lie ahead. Most for the Engagement Team revolve around one fact: With a university as large and diverse as Illinois, the team is still trying to tailor messaging to as much of campus as possible.
Part of that process has been a heavier focus on some objectives over others and, in some cases, a complete restructuring. Take for example Objectives 7.4 and 7.5, respectively: using GivePulse — a volunteer, engagement, and fundraising service — to bolster campus-community collaboration on sustainability issues; and holding an annual Youth Sustainability Summit as part of a broader effort to teach children environmental stewardship.
For Sterner and the rest of the team members — all of whom have participated for only a year — evaluating if these objectives are the best ways to engage campus is a valid question.
“We dug into some of these objectives,” Sterner said. “Maybe some of them don’t necessarily need to be replaced, but they might not be as applicable today as they were originally. We’ve had to ask, ‘How do you reframe the question? How do we modernize it?’ A lot of stuff has changed since 2020.”
The iCAP Engagement Team has worked with the Illini Union, Athletics, and other iCAP teams on sustainability initiatives — and campaigned to find volunteers for myriad events. However, its main challenge is defining what its role should be as campus pushes to net zero.
No argument there. But what to do in the meantime? The answer: Be as multi-purpose as a Swiss Army knife.
The Engagement Team has become the Illinois Climate Action Plan’s all-in-one resource. It is the iCAP’s central connectivity hub, Army Reserves, and PR team: If any of the iCAP teams need boots on the ground fast, the Engagement Team is ready to deploy.
Nowhere was this more apparent than during the university’s most recent Zero Waste events. “We had people asking where they could get volunteers,” Sterner said. “So one of our students on our team worked with the Office of Civic Life, and we were able to generate a lot of volunteers for these programs for the Zero Waste Team.”
Other ongoing sustainability programs, like Green Quad Day and “Sustainapalooza”— an event newly conceived by the Student Sustainability Leadership Council (SSLC) — were identified by the Engagement Team as opportunities to collaborate with other campus sustainability organizations in mobilizing students to get them involved in campus sustainability projects.
Or, put more succinctly by Sterner, “Get a group that’s passionate enough, realign everyone’s goals, and move forward rapidly.”
Sounds a lot like engagement.
Wrapping up our iCAP retrospective …
So, where do we go from here? Based on our roundup of progress and challenges since iCAP 2020, the University of Illinois community must keep three main things in mind if it truly wants to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050:
Energy, Energy, Energy
How each iCAP chapter directly impacts the university’s greenhouse gas emissions varies significantly. The vast majority of our carbon emissions come from how campus makes its energy, which is mostly through the fossil fuel-powered Abbott Power Plant.
Campus has pursued almost every option for renewable energy available — solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear — but all of those and more will be required to cut university emissions to zero.
The U of I has made progress on that front. In 2008, the university emitted 575,088 tons of greenhouse gases. In 2023, that dropped to 391,279 tons, within reach of the 2025 goal of 344,906 tons.
Individual actions, like turning off lights, unplugging electronics, using more efficient appliances, and taking shorter showers, can aid in reducing that figure only en masse. And still they will not be enough to get campus emissions to zero. Therefore, campus must continually emphasize updating its energy infrastructure as the priority.
It’s all interconnected
We’ve had a drought the past two years here in Champaign-Urbana, which has killed a significant number of trees that were planted on campus to help us reach our Land & Water goals. The lack of trees, in turn, makes our community less resilient to increased stormwater surge.
Just one example of how the problems that each iCAP chapter tackles are so intertwined. That idea applies to solutions as well.
Perhaps the most effective way to reduce university emissions isn’t by re-engineering solar panels to be a fraction of a percent more efficient. Instead, it could be through advocacy. Maybe the best way to get people to reduce driving time is by making walkways and bike paths more shaded and, therefore, more enjoyable. Or perhaps students in the university’s Environmental Leadership Program (a successfully completed objective in the Education chapter) could even lobby lawmakers to ban state institutions from using, or investing in, fossil fuels.
Thinking of the climate issue on our campus or anywhere through the lens of one single discipline, cause, or iCAP chapter only narrows our solutions. Seeing our individual work as something that can have vast repercussions — whether good or ill — can make us more aware and deliberate in our decisions as the university continues toward net zero.
Let the students lead
Finally, campus must never forget its greatest asset and very reason for existence: Its students. Our generation and those of the future will live with climate change’s worst effects — things that we were not necessarily responsible for creating.
As an individual of this campus and a resident of this planet, by far the most impactful thing you can do is get yourself, as well as others, involved. At a university with over 50,000 people, changing the energy infrastructure, cutting down on food and plastic waste, reducing energy and water demand, and advocating for land management practices that increase carbon storage can only be accomplished together.
“Since the iCAP 2020, we’ve made major progress to decrease our carbon footprint and improve environmental sustainability on campus. This is the result of cross-campus efforts led by Facilities & Services, the iCAP teams, iSEE, and other partners in sustainability efforts like the Illini Union, DIA, the Office of Student Success, Inclusion and Belonging, and many others – notably the Student Sustainability Committee and student groups that help mobilize support for sustainability initiatives,” said iSEE Sustainability Programs Coordinator Miriam Keep.
“There is still much work ahead of us, and we look forward to continuing to work across campus and build new partnerships to meet our long-term sustainability goals with the iCAP 2025!”
There is a place for everyone here, not just the scientists or the engineers or the communications experts. Skilled and willed people from every discipline and every background are needed to get our campus to net zero.
And by banding our voices together, we might advocate for the necessary change at a larger level: asking the Urbana-Champaign campus, the University of Illinois system, and the state that governs it to align their wallet with their words.
For centuries, we Illini have gone on to do great things in the world. That process does not have to start after we walk across the graduation stage. If we can truly change our complex, large university into a bastion of climate action, more organizations — other universities, corporations, governments — will see proof that sustainability is truly possible, and then, hopefully, follow in our footsteps.
