Food Eco-Industrial Park and Incubator - The Plant Chicago

How to describe "The Plant" in Back of the Yards on Chicago's South Side which I visited in late December 2012?

It is a net-zero energy and waste food business incubator and has at various stages of development:

• Two breweries (one for tea, the other beer)
• Two bakeries
• A mushroom farm
• Two fish farms
• Two leafy greens farms
• A jam producer
• Demonstration and development kitchens
• Training facilities
• Rooftop, ground-level, and greenhouse Kitchen gardens
• Shared office space and support services
• Retail shop and visitors centre
• Farmers market

The plant as it will be in 3 years

But as befits a project which John Edel, Executive Director describes as being planned using systems thinking, it's not just a list of businesses in a single building.  It far more integrated and multifaceted, though definitely not complicated.  Indeed there is a beauty to this business model...

 Outside In...

Looking from the 'outside' the project:

• Is a start-up eco-industrial project creating high quality local sustainable food and jobs with zero net-waste and zero net-energy use
• Is a business incubator for food producers, processors and retailers, including something like the Finnish "Open Kitchen" project
• Has a collaborative, integrated and mutually supportive business model involving not-for-profit, for-profit and charitable organizations, the community, food entrepreneurs and consumers 
• Aims to educate the local population about healthful food choices (in what many would describe as a food desert)
• Is a proof of concept for an urban vertical farm
• Is a green building project which is re-purposing a former meat processing facility through creative on-site reuse of all existing materials 

 Inside Out...

From the inside, the business model is described by John Edel using a system dynamics like causal loop diagram - showing the cycles and flows of energy and materials through and in and out of each of  the various organizations and businesses involved:

The System Dyanmics Flow of Materials and Energy in the Plant

In this short talk by John Edel he explains much of the above and more with many more pictures! (Although John doesn't dwell on it there is some serious science and engineering behind this project).

For a video which includes a good walk through of the first of the acquaponics (fish + leafy greens) farming operations (walk-through starts at 3m49):

 A Work in Progress...

When I visited the foundations for the German Anaerobic Digester, similar to the ones installed as part of the Toronto Green Bin program back in 2004, were being actively excavated with installation and commissioning due for mid-2013.

Eissenman Anaerobic Digester similar to the one being installed at The Plant

The combined heat and power unit was installed, and the space for the chillers being actively prepared.  The tea brewery was in operation.  One of the bakery tenant's ovens was finished and awaiting final inspection and the 2nd aquaponic operation, a commercial tenant, was also just ramping up.  Mushroom production was underway and much evidence of other works in process! During the tour, which was led by John, he estimated that the space would be fully occupied by tenants within 3 years.

 So What...

This is a wonderful example of the new art and science of strongly sustainable business model design!  It recognizes equally the need to simultaneously generate and integrate economic, social and environmental benefits while minimizing "costs" in all three dimensions.  At the same time it recognizes the context for all this activity and understands the necessary relationships between and with contexts for this business model.  Yes, it is more complex than traditional profit-first business models; but it is also far less risky in the short, medium and long term.  It recognizes the fundamental limits and needs of the environmental and a broad range of stakeholders - not just stockholders.  It will be effective at generating desirable outcomes for all.  Further by re-purposing waste as raw materials its operating costs for energy and raw materials will be lower, offering efficiencies higher than existing businesses in the same industries. BTW this is John Edel's second venture into strongly sustainable business: the first the highly successful Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center (CSMC).   The CSMC project, over 5 years, took a former manufacturing plant which had become a biker den and returned it to a profitable collaborative centre for small scale manufacturing! (John talks about it at the start of the video above). The continuing success of the CSMC bodes well for The Plant. From what I can tell this is a ground-breaking and unique project in North America - one that paves the way for many more.  Kudos to John and everyone else involved... may the Plant become a huge success and prove out its commercial, social and environmental viability...

I will be following along with great interest! Now...how can we get one of these started in Toronto?

 More Detail

For a great write up of the Plant see this recent article in the University of Washington's Conservation Magazine: The Inside Job by Canadian Jennifer Cockrall-King. The following are two panels which provide some more details which I photographed during my December 2012 visit to The Plant (right click to open in a separate window to view larger)