Read about Campus Sustainability

* Campus making progress on sustainability
* Student-run farm to supply produce to dining halls
* Dining Services tests eco-friendly alternatives
* Students find gold in first e-waste design competition

 

A Vision for Sustainability at Illinois

Dear Colleagues,

As you may know, last year the Chancellor took steps toward ramping up sustainability efforts at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois). These steps included establishing the Office of Sustainability, and forming the Sustainability Council. The Sustainability Council is chaired by Chancellor Herman. The Sustainability Council also includes the Director of the Office of Sustainability (Vice Chair), Provost, the Vice Chancellors, the Executive Directors of the Facilities & Services and the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability, and one representative each of the Council of Deans, the faculty and students.

In recent months there have been efforts underway that have now produced a draft Strategic Vision for Sustainability at Illinois. The visioning effort has been led by Associate Provost Fellow Barbara Minsker and me. We are now in the process of broadly engaging our community in considering this high level vision, which at this point is meant to speak to what we collectively aspire to accomplish relative to sustainability over the long term. The Sustainability Council will soon begin to consider how the results of this visioning process will be formalized and operationalized.

There are a couple of near term opportunities for you participate in this visioning process:

Please click here for the latest draft of the vision statement. Please click here to submit feedback about the vision.

There will be a forum to present and discuss the vision on Wednesday, April 8th from 9 am -1 pm at the Illini Union in rooms B & C. The forum will include a roundtable discussion of sorts whereby participants work in small groups to prioritize feedback and potential near term action steps.

I encourage you to participate in this important visioning process for sustainability at Illinois!

Dick Warner, Professor and Director
Office of Sustainability

 

Illinois Governor visits campus to push 'green' universities initiatives

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn joined U of I officials at the Business Instructional Facility on the Urbana campus on February 18th to celebrate the signing of the Sustainable University Compact. Please click here for full details.