Oak Park village leaders have contracted the University of Illinois to help the village meet its energy efficiency goals.
On Tuesday May 20, Oak Park’s village board unanimously approved a contract with the school that will see staffers from U. of I.’s Smart Energy Design Assistance Center working to educate Oak Parkers on energy efficiency best practices while helping the village boost compliance with the efficiency ordinance for large buildings it passed in 2023.
Oak Park will spend $100,000 on the program. The expense had originally been slated for approval via the consent agenda at May 13’s board meeting, but the matter was pulled from that agenda so the board could discuss it in more depth on May 20.
U. of I. staffers will perform energy assessments on five Oak Park buildings, lead energy efficiency education sessions around the village and provide the village with reports on energy policy best practices based on their work in Oak Park, according to the scope of work report prepared by the university.
“Energy assessments and education can help businesses identify, implement, track, and measure sustainable business practices,” U. of I. officials wrote in the scope of work report. “Assessments can also help building owners and tenants plan and document their sustainability efforts, reporting progress to key stakeholders or customers. Through the village, buildings and tenants can also be recognized for their energy reduction and
partnership, encouraging other businesses to join and adopt green practices.”
The five buildings U. of I. will assess will be a “representative sample” of different types of large buildings in the village, according to Lindsey Roland Nieratka, Oak Park’s chief sustainability officer. She told the board that the program has similar goals to the “Green Business Program” the village funded in years past.
“In our conversations with the Smart Energy Design Assistance Center and the report that was done on the Green Business Program in 2023 we saw an opportunity to do a program that would connect commercial businesses with the commercial property owners to do deeper retrofits and energy efficiency work,” she said. “It is something we are hearing from some of our building owners, interest in the village supporting full audits to help them understand what the opportunities are and providing guidance on switching out certain technologies and things that exist in the building.”
“That will go towards building out educational opportunities that will go to a wider audience.”
Village President Vicki Scaman said the program could be particularly effective if some of the buildings studied are in Oak Park’s most densely populated districts.
“I appreciate what this does for us, I’ve talked with business owners and problems come up where they’re overwhelming for them to figure out how to navigate, they can’t anticipate them, they’re very unique,” Scaman said. “When you make policy and have these aspirational goals of how we all want our buildings to be, it’s not just the age of the building that contributes to the challenge, it’s the infrastructure we have here in Oak Park.”
U. of I. will also put on four educational sessions in the village over the next year, with the first session anticipated for July. Sessions will cover energy use reduction topics and will be aimed at both building tenants and owners, according to the scope of work report.
The agreement comes as Oak Park work’s to drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the lofty sustainability goals contained within the village’s Climate Ready Oak Park Plan, which require the village to cut its emissions by 60% before 2030 in a bid for carbon neutrality by 2050. According to research by the village’s sustainability office, 70% of the village’s present greenhouse emissions come from residential and commercial buildings.
Since 2023, a village ordinance has required buildings 10,000 square feet and larger to submit benchmark reports on their energy and water consumption. “Reducing building energy use is the most important step that Oak Park can take to
take action on climate change and reach the community’s Climate Ready Oak Park
goals,” village officials wrote on the landing page for the benchmark report database.
According to that database, the vast majority of buildings covered by the ordinance have not submitted reports.
“We also saw this as an opportunity to help support compliance with our benchmarking ordinance,” Roland Nieratka said. “To provide an incentive to participate in that program.”