Update to UIC climate commitments

Dear UIC community,

In 2016, Chancellor Amiridis made four commitments on UIC’s behalf to address the challenges of climate change. These goals aim to transform UIC into a:

• Carbon neutral campus.
• Zero waste campus.
• Net zero water campus.
• Biodiverse campus.

After these commitments were announced, teaching and learning in sustainability was added as another universitywide goal. It is now clear that promoting transformative scholarship through the study of sustainability is critical to address the challenges facing Chicago and all great cities of the 21st century. Simultaneously, we want to be mindful of the opportunities presented to innovate and lead in environmental thought and policy well into the future.

Accordingly, I am adding a fifth commitment on behalf of UIC and revising the wording of all commitments as follows:

• Carbon neutral university.
• Zero waste university.
• Net zero water university.
• Biodiverse university.
• Transformative scholarship university.

Our climate commitments contribute to the lived experience of the UIC community every day through the execution of the specific goals stated in our Climate Action Implementation Plan. I invite you to review the information online, including the CAIP Portal, to see how UIC is progressing on specific goals. Many of these goals relate to education and research and have been pursued and accomplished since the original climate commitments were made. By recognizing the centrality of transformative scholarship, these revised climate commitments will enable UIC to accomplish our stated mission of creating knowledge that transforms the world through sharing and application.

Sincerely,

Javier Reyes
Interim Chancellor