UChicago Green Fund 2024-2025

As part of the University of Chicago’s commitment to student research, scholarship and innovation around sustainability, Campus and Student Life has launched a Green Fund in collaboration with the student-led UChicago Environmental Alliance (UCEA) and Undergraduate Student Government (USG). Up to $50,000 in grants will be available in the 2024-2025 academic year to support student-led research and projects for improving campus sustainability and reducing the University’s environmental impact.

2025-2026 Leadership Applications

Want to help shape how the university funds impactful sustainability projects on campus? Apply to join the Green Fund Subcommittee or Review Board!

Subcommittee Members (students only) help manage the grant application process, recruit reviewers, and promote the Green Fund. Subcommittee Members must have a prior affiliation with an environmental organization on campus.

Apply to join the Subcommittee

Review Board Members score proposals and provide feedback during Fall and Winter review cycles.

Apply to join the Review Board

Applications for both positions are due Friday, May 2, 2025 at 11:59 PM CST. Please direct any questions to greenfund@uchicago.edu.

Application Forms

To apply to the Green Fund, please read the following webpage carefully for eligibility requirements and process. Please fill out the Proposal Form (open in Microsoft Word for optimal viewing) and submit it through the Application Google Form by the following deadlines to be considered:

• Fall cycle: Friday, November 1, 2024 at 11:59pm CST (Week 5)
• Winter cycle: Friday, February 7, 2025 at 11:59pm CST (Week 5)

Green Fund applicants can expect to receive a funding decision via email by the end of the quarter during which they applied.

Who Can Apply

All current University of Chicago undergraduate, graduate and professional students and student groups are welcome to apply. Students may apply as individuals, teams or as part of a Recognized Student Organization (RSO). Teams may include faculty, other academic appointees and staff, but the project lead(s) should be students. Students must be enrolled and in good academic and disciplinary standing for the duration of their funded project. Grant awardees will be required to submit either a Midterm Poster or Report detailing the progress of their project one quarter after receiving funding, and are expected to present their findings at the Green Fund End of Year Symposium in the spring.

Proposal Criteria

Successful proposals will seek to examine and reduce the environmental impacts of University operations, broadly defined, via either original scholarly research or a stand-alone project. The research and/or project should have practical and tangible implications for one or more campus functions and UChicago’s overall sustainability goals.

Project proposals must reduce the environmental impacts of campus life, broadly defined. The student project should have tangible impacts; generally, one-time events will not be approved unless the event(s) are part of a larger initiative with tangible impacts. If additional funding is available, the Green Fund will consider approving one-time events as long as they have the potential for tangible impact on campus sustainability. Applicants should discuss how the project will be implemented, identify relevant stakeholders and create potential contingency plans.

Examples:

• Establish composting in campus cafés
• Create a community garden or greenhouse on campus
• Implement a zero-waste initiative for major RSO events

Although the Green Fund has been in the past used to fund seed projects, the Green Fund now offers funding for long term projects and renews funding for pre-existing projects so long as there are remaining funds available after seed projects are funded, and pre-existing projects have proven successful in the past.

Tips for successful proposals:

• Connect with relevant campus partners and get approval or confirmation of collaboration (this includes a consideration for your audience; for example, if you are a graduate student who wants to work within dining halls, connect with undergraduates who regularly visit these venues).
• Create supporting materials such as graphics, images, surveys, etc. to further illustrate your project or demonstrate campus need (please note that supplemental materials must be anonymous and have no identifying characteristics).
• Seek an advisor or mentor for the project.
• Spend time creating an accurate and feasible budget.

Application Process

Green Fund grant proposals for 2024-25 can be submitted by one of the two following deadlines:

• Fall cycle: Friday, November 1, 2024 at 11:59pm CST (Week 5)
• Winter cycle: Friday, February 7, 2025 at 11:59pm CST (Week 5)

A maximum of $25,000 will be awarded in each application cycle. Applicants will be notified of their funding status by the end of the quarter during which they applied. Grants of $500-$5,000 will be awarded for impactful, short-term (≤1 year) research or projects. Grant proposals requesting over $5,000 for long-term (>1 year) research or projects will be considered with increased supervision and mentorship expectations.

If selected, the Green Fund will contact you by Friday April 25, 2025 (Week 5) as regards to the submission of the Midterm Report. You must submit the report within 5 weeks of when contacted or by the end of spring quarter, which ever date is soonest.

To be eligible for review, grant proposals must include the following:

• Executive summary
• Experiences and Qualifications of the applicant(s)
• Needs Assessment: Problem or need at UChicago
• Project Goals and Outcomes
• Implementation Plan
• Impact Statement
• Evaluation Plan and Timeline: Metrics and key milestones for measuring project impact and defining success, including how results will be communicated to University stakeholders
• Itemized Budget
• Documentation of Mentorship (recommended)

Please note if your project receives funding, all corresponding promotional materials must state that the project was funded by the Green Fund.

Previous Recipients

2024-2025

(Congratulations to our recipients! Reports pending.)

University Charter School Woodlawn Community Garden

Community Composting Bin

Hallowed Grounds Composting

Ex Libris Composting Extension

2023-2024

Phoenix Farms Vermiculture

In Winter 2024, the RSO Phoenix Farms received funding to install a vermiculture composting pod in its community garden located on 56th Street. Vermiculture uses worms to break down organic material and convert it to nutrient – rich soil, thereby efficiently reducing food waste, promoting easy and sustainable gardening practices, and improving soil health. The vermiculture subpod is an in-ground worm-based composting bin that with Green Fund funding, has been implemented directly in the Phoenix Farms garden. We fill the subpod with bedding (leaf litter, cardboard, straw) to provide the worms with a warm, dark, moist environment to grow, and top with compostable food scraps. Food waste is reduced by adding compostable food scraps from members of the University and the club. The nutrient-rich vermicompost will also help grow fresh vegetables, which will be harvested and donated to the 55th Street Love Fridge, making our produce more accessible to those who need it most.

• View symposium poster here

Café Composting Expansion

Baristas at Ex Libris Café and Harper Café earned funding to sponsor coffee ground composting at both cafes for an entire calendar. This project departs from former cafe composting projects in being entirely café-led. Ex Libris Café and Harper Café collect coffee grounds that are transported by The Urban Canopy to be composted; the Green Fund funding goes to paying partners at Urban Canopy responsible for the physical composting of coffee grounds. Café staff collect coffee grounds in two 35-gallon bins and transport them to a pickup location every week. 15,000 pounds have been composted between February 2023 and April 2024. Composting imitates the natural recycling of nutrients in soils and turns organic waste into a commercially usable fertilizer product for farms. This process closes the food cycle loop and stops organic waste from ending up in landfills, producing methane gas which contributes to climate change. A significant amount of waste in cafés comes from coffee grounds.

• View symposium poster here

Uranyl Acetate Alternatives

In Winter 2024, the Uranyl Acetate Alternatives student group received funding from the Green Fund to reduce the usage of uranyl acetate in UChicago labs. Uranyl acetate (UA) serves as the standard contrast-enhancing agent in electron microscopy (EM) following processing with osmium. However, the use of UA poses risks to both researchers and the environment due to its toxicity and mild radioactivity. Surprisingly, several labs have demonstrated that oolong tea extract (OTE) serves as a suitable replacement for UA in en-block EM staining protocols. With our Green Fund funding, we examined how tea leaves prepared in a variety of ways stain tissue. Briefly, we replaced the final UA step in a standard en-bloc EM stain (Hua et. al.) with various preparations of different types of tea, and infused water with other natural compounds, like beets, turmeric, and almonds. To investigate what components of the tea play a role in staining for EM, we chose to use mass spectrometry for compound identification. To examine the actual components that are absorbed by the brain tissue, we perform mass spectrometry on both the initial staining solution and the staining solution after incubation. By analyzing EM quality in different groups, we have narrowed down which components of tea and other organic compounds that have similar staining quality as UA. With these results, we are working to develop a safer and more environmentally friendly standard preparation that replaces UA without sacrificing staining quality.

• View symposium poster here

2022-2023

On Campus Clothing Bin and Collection System

In Fall 2022, PSI’s Campus Waste Reduction received funding from the Green Fund to install a permanent clothing donation bin in Reynolds Club, to provide the community with an easily accessible, not-for-profit donation spot. The bin, installed this week, will allow students to easily donate clothes to UChicago’s first thrift store: reSTORE. reSTORE works to create a more circular clothing economy in Hyde Park. We were open Spring Quarter 2023 Thursday, Friday, and Sunday 1-5PM in the basement of Stuart Hall. When shopping at our store, customers have the option of choosing one of three local environmental nonprofit organizations—Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Blacks in Green, and Openlands—to donate the profits of their purchase. reSTORE has already processed over 1,000 transactions and raised thousands of dollars for each of its local nonprofit partners, with the goal of becoming a permanent clothing waste solution on campus.

• View symposium poster here

On Campus Event Composting

PSI’s campus composting noticed that on-campus events with food hosted by RSOs and University departments are very popular and frequent, and there is a high volume of food and serving material waste generated from them. We designed a program to connect event organizers with The Urban Canopy, a local compost hauler, and provided subsidized compostable serving materials, compost receptacles, and volunteer assistance with waste sorting. We hoped to educate event organizers and attendees about sustainable waste practices. We reached out individually to event organizers about a month before each event, and worked with them to create a specific plan. There was always a PSI volunteer or Urban Canopy employee stationed next to the compost bins to eliminate contamination and educate attendees about composting.

• View symposium poster here

Food Recovery Network Bulk Foods Expansion

The UChicago Food Recovery Network is a CSRSO dedicated to fighting food waste on campus and food insecurity in Hyde Park and surrounding communities. Since 2018 we have partnered with a number of community organizations, including The Chicago City Life Center (CCLC), Margaret’s Village, St. Paul and the Redeemer Food Pantry, and the 55th St. Love Fridge as well as UC Dining to help distribute UChicago’s excess food waste. With Green Fund funding, we have begun to deliver not only single packaged foods but bulk foods to our local partners. Bulk foods are sorted into single-serve containers so that they can be more easily accepted by our community partners. We currently transport food 6 times a week to 3 community partners: the CCLC, St. Paul and the Redeemer Food Pantry, and the 55th St. Love Fridge.

• View symposium poster here

Composting at Student-Run Cafes

Phoenix Sustainability Initiative’s Campus Composting project group works to reduce solid waste produced by the University community through public education and by facilitating the use of organic waste diversion infrastructure on campus and around Hyde Park. This year, Campus Composting has implemented a program to compost waste at student-run cafes by piloting a program at Ex Libris Cafe. Using funds provided by the Green Fund, Campus Composting has installed two 35-gallon waste receptacles to collect coffee grounds. Since the start of the program, composing at Ex Libris has diverted ~300 lbs of coffee grounds from landfills weekly.

• View symposium poster here