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MEET JOHN EDEL, PLANT CHICAGO
 | | John Edel, Executive Director, Plant Chicago |
Bioneers are social and scientific innovators from all walks of life and disciplines who have peered deep into the heart of living systems to understand how nature operates, and to mimic "nature's operating instructions" to serve human ends without harming the web of life.
And we think you'll agree that John Edel and his work epitomize the definition of a Bioneer! John's most recent work, Plant Chicago, i s a project that combines adaptive industrial reuse and aquaponics to create the nation's first vertical farm.
Located in a former meatpacking facility in Chicago's historic Stockyards,
Plant Chicago is being repurposed into a net-zero energy vertical farm and food business operation. A complex and highly interrelated system, one-third of Plant Chicago will hold aquaponic growing systems and the other two-thirds will incubate sustainable food businesses by offering low rent, low energy costs, and (eventually) a licensed shared kitchen. Five businesses, including two bakeries and three-aquaponics systems, already occupy the building.
Plant Chicago will create 125 jobs in Chicago's economically distressed Back of the Yards neighborhood - but, remarkably, these jobs will require no fossil fuel use. Instead, Plant Chicago will install a renewable energy system that will eventually divert over 10,000 tons of food waste from landfills each year to meet all of its heat and power needs.
John is giving a plenary address on Saturday, November 3 at 4:30 pm. You won't want to miss hearing how his project came into being and talk with John about the opportunities and challenges he's faced each step of the way.
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November 2 is just a month away. We hope you'll make space in your schedule to learn and talk with others about how we might use nature's principles of kinship, cooperation, diversity, creation - absent of waste - to bring about an equitable and compassionate society. We're making space for that discussion - and need the collective wisdom and voice of all to help guide and shape our future in Chicago - the Living City!
See you soon,
Pam Richart, Organizer
Core Planning Team
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