CHAMPAIGN— University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Charles Isbell Jr. signed the 2026 Illinois Climate Action Plan Wednesday morning.
The plan charts the university’s path to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, if not sooner. The 2026 iCAP is the fourth update to this roadmap, containing 40 objectives surrounding energy, transportation, sustainable buildings, education, engagement and more. The plan is updated about every five years to measure progress, identify challenges and realign strategies based on campus priorities.
However, the plan does not include the goal of divesting the university’s endowment from fossil fuels, reinvesting financial resources in sustainable and socially responsible funds and making all investments more transparent, which were goals in the 2020 plan.
“There have been two referendums in the last two years that have shown between 70 and 90% support for divestment,” junior environmental science student and former student body president Gabriella DalSanto said.
Students planned a protest Wednesday afternoon to celebrate Earth Day and take a stand against the action plan. In a statement, Fossil Free Illinois, one of the student organizations planning the protest, said they celebrate the continued steps toward sustainability but understand the limitations of the plan, as the goals have historically not been met.
Students are demanding the iCAP be signed by Isbell as a binding commitment, turning it into an institutional requirement ensuring accountability. They also want the plan to include sustainable investments within the University of Illinois System’s endowment fund and make divestment the official position of the university, on top of ceasing all partnerships with fossil fuel companies that provide research, scholarship or grant funding to the university.
Divestment is important, but it’s not the point of the plan, Director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment Madhu Khanna said.
“The focus of our climate action plan is to look at how we can make our campus more sustainable and so that is outside of the scope of our campus,” she explained. “It is not an issue that is within the jurisdiction. Those are financial decisions not made by our campus.”
Even so, DalSanto thinks removing it from the plan was a step in the wrong direction.
“Even if it was a symbolic thing of saying that as a university we are going to look into divestment and pursue that as an option,” she said. “It being removed now kind of shows that even though there is growing student support for this issue, it is not necessarily being reflected in the plans of the university.”
Since the first iCAP in 2010, the university has saved more than $120 million through energy efficient upgrades, increased the amount of clean energy to 13% of campus electricity, expanded solar, wind and geothermal systems and increased waste diversion, water efficiency and sustainable transportation options, according to the 2026 iCAP.
“This is at the end of the day, fundamentally, what it means to be a good ancestor,” Isbell said, “and that is why we are all here on this campus and this world, to be good ancestors to those that’ll follow.”
Faculty, staff and students helped develop the plan, recommending concrete steps to meet targets.
DalSanto is proud of the 2026 iCAP but is worried there isn’t enough movement by the university to follow through on it, she said. The plan is typically updated every five years, and the last plan was published in 2020.
“The iCAP was ready over the summer. It was ready to be reviewed,” she said. “Like you saw, it’s not a large document. It was ready to be reviewed and signed in summer.”
DalSanto understands why some students are calling for more accountability.
“I think that there is some skepticism about the accountability measures, because we were supposed to be divested at this point,” she said. “We’re supposed to be closer to carbon neutral than we are.”
What’s in the plan?
The 2026 iCAP outlines seven goals to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and promote climate resilience.
- Reduce energy use through conservation and efficiency and transition to clean energy sources.
- Enhance sustainable transportation options and transform the campus fleet to be less reliant on fossil fuels.
- Design and maintain landscapes that promote biodiversity and ecosystem health.
- Become a zero-waste campus.
- Enhance the environmental sustainability of new and existing buildings by reducing their energy, water and carbon footprints.
- Amplify sustainability education.
- Foster a culture of sustainability on campus and encourage meaningful participation in climate action.
The plan does face some challenges. Despite developing the 2024 Campus Bike Plan, the university still lacks funding to fully implement it, according to the plan. Additionally, there is no consistent funding to improve and maintain sidewalk infrastructure.
Transportation objectives in the new plan include continuing to improve bike infrastructure, maintaining pavement conditions for roads and sidewalks and exploring options to reduce air travel emissions.
The university has also struggled to get the amount of landfill waste it produces down, according to the plan. The amount increased slightly from 2023 to 2024 and only dropped significantly during the pandemic. Although organic waste comprises a large portion of the university’s landfill waste, there are no compost facilities that operate locally that can divert that waste from the landfill.
One of the objectives toward the plan’s zero waste goal is to develop a plan for organic waste handling options, as well as implement green cleaning practices to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals, reduce plastic waste and reduce landfill waste at athletic events.
Enhancing the environmental sustainability of the university’s buildings is a new goal in the plan. Objectives include collecting and analyzing building level data on energy consumption, waste and water, investigating opportunities to integrate sustainable building materials into construction and evaluating the carbon implications of potential building demolitions.
The 2026 iCAP also aims to integrate sustainability into existing curricula. More than 550 sustainability-related courses were offered by more than 60 departments during the last school year. A new objective in this plan is to regularly assess student sustainability literacy at the campus level to evaluate learning outcomes.
What’s next?
Khanna said the university will continue to report on its progress as part of the Second Nature Climate Leadership Commitments it signed onto in 2008.
“It’s an audited process, so based on that, they compared our performance to other campuses,” she said. “And then we’ve consistently been getting a gold star rating. Our aim is to get to platinum if we can.”
Senior natural resources and environmental sciences student Natalie Reed hopes the plan is just a starting point for the university.
“As we meet these iCAP targets, I’m hopeful that the university not only fulfills them but pushes beyond them, to keep improving, innovating and striving for an even greater impact,” she said.
The university is committed to following through on the plan, according to Isbell.
“We will, though we may stumble occasionally, we will find a way to accomplish all of these goals and indeed go beyond them,” he said.