The University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus is about to get a lot “greener” following planned investments of nearly $100 million toward more sustainable operations.

Several of the new efforts being implemented follow the recommendations of committees—comprising faculty, staff and students—charged with reviewing the university’s progress in the areas of waste reduction, greenhouse gas reduction and campus sustainability culture.

Recommended efforts include expanding the food waste composting program; creation of an investment fund to support renewable energy demonstration projects on campus; extending the university’s energy conservation program to include the U-M Health System, athletics and student housing facilities; and enhancing sustainability behavior change and engagement programs.

In addition, the athletic department will work with campus experts to design a Zero Waste program for Michigan Stadium, and will select one game next year to test the prototype of a Zero Waste game day. The test will help in the design of a long-term sustainable system.

The new initiatives build on existing sustainability efforts and support the university’s goals related to climate action, waste prevention, healthy environments and community awareness and action.

Broadening the university’s successful energy conservation program in athletics, residence halls and the health system facilities will help to reduce overall energy demand. However, the project with the greatest anticipated impact on the reduction of greenhouse gases is the installation of additional gas turbine capabilities at the Central Power Plant.

The project will require Board of Regents approval to increase the capacity of the plant to generate electricity and heat at a more efficient rate and reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent—equivalent to removing more than 30,000 passenger vehicles from the road.

Aside from the committee recommendations, the university also is exploring new possibilities for transportation in Ann Arbor and making improvements in storm water management.

For the 4th consecutive year, a group of exceptional master’s and professional-degree students were named Dow Sustainability Fellows. With this honor, they were welcomed into a growing community of scholars focused on finding interdisciplinary solutions to sustainability challenges related to water, energy, transportation, the built environment, climate change, food, health and human behavior.

The 39 students were selected from a distinguished group of nominees, with each U-M school and college nominating up to 10 candidates. “We’re thrilled to welcome such a diverse group of students into the fold,” said Don Scavia, special counsel to the president, who administers the program on behalf of U-M. “The best ideas and solutions evolve from a range of views and approaches, and that’s what this interdisciplinary fellowship is all about.”

This fellowship program is made possible by a gift from the Dow Chemical Company.

Grants totaling $43,500 enabled U-M students to develop projects to benefit the planet in ways big and small in 2015.

Funded through the Student Sustainability Initiative, these projects ranged from developing ways to enhance crop yields in India to encouraging urban farming in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to building America’s No. 1 solar car in a workshop on North Campus. The funding also supported a group of 10 U-M students and faculty members who attended the influential U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

Two new U.S. Department of Energy grants totaling $5.4 million will enable mechanical engineering researchers to work on “transformational” engine and battery projects. Their efforts could lead to efficiency gains in cars and trucks, the electrical grid and beyond.

The grants are part of $125 million in funding that the department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy recently doled out to 41 groups across the nation.

One U-M project leader, Associate Professor Jeff Sakamoto, received $3.5 million to search for a battery construction method that can eclipse lithium-ion batteries. While widely used, lithium-ion batteries are fragile, flammable, temperature-sensitive and not rechargeable. They are also relatively expensive to manufacture. The batteries Sakamoto envisions could be safely used in cars and trucks, as well as in the electrical grid. Better grid-scale batteries could make solar and wind power more feasible, because they could provide storage when it’s cloudy or when the air is still.

To achieve his goal, Sakamoto will work with researchers from U-M, Ford Motor Company, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Solid Power and the University of Rochester.

Professor Anna Stefanopoulou, director of the U-M Automotive Research Center, was granted $1.9 million to develop technologies for highly efficient and responsive small automobile engines. Stefanopoulou’s plans include augmenting traditional turbocharging to provide instant air-flow control as well as using stored energy generated by other vehicle systems. The application of these technologies would greatly enhance the ability of automakers to produce cleaner cars.

U-M debuted its groundbreaking Battery Fabrication and Characterization User Facility (Battery Lab) in October 2015, to the delight of startups, established companies and academics eager to build and test prototypes.

Located inside the Energy Institute on North Campus, the Battery Lab was funded with a $2 million investment from the university supplemented by $5 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and $2.1 million from Ford Motor Company.

During the past two decades, battery technology has progressed slowly while the devices they power — from cell phones to cars to medical implants — have evolved rapidly. Researchers have been exploring ways to make batteries lighter, more efficient, safer and more cost-effective, but so far, commercialization of new battery technologies has proven elusive.

The Battery Lab is expected to change that. “We feel confident that we’ve built the nation’s most complete, customized battery research open-user facility. This infrastructure investment is key to achieving the breakthroughs needed to make both electric vehicles and grid storage viable at all the scales needed for the future,” said Energy Institute Director Mark Barteau.

The Battery Lab will also serve as a base for U-M’s continuing research and development efforts as a partner in the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, a U.S. Department of Energy-led consortium for developing next-generation batteries. Additionally, it will provide new capabilities to support the vehicle electrification thrust of the Clean Vehicles Consortium, supported by the U.S. and Chinese governments.