Zero3

Select one of the below:

Describe what makes your solution innovative.

Much like living organisms, cities consume energy, metabolise materials and produce waste, but contrary to natural metabolism, urban waste is generally not recirculated as a new resource.

Zero3 seeks to reconfigure our linear cities into multiple networks of circular, self-sustaining, granular systems, where all elements are mutually beneficial and nothing goes to waste. Zero3 is a unique opportunity to adapt to a future of resource limitation and climate change.

Circular economy: Looking beyond the current 'take-make-waste' extractive industrial model, Zero3 enable zero-waste food production without the net GHG emissions. It enables local organic waste – food and green garden waste – to be recycled without property degradation and returned to the natural ecosystem without environmental harm. Zero3 helps to mitigate the pressing problem of urban waste management, environmental sustainability and diminishing availability of global resources.

Economies-of-Scope: Economies of scale involve reductions in the average ‘cost per unit’ from increased production for a single product type. 'Economies-of-Scope' involve lowering average cost by producing more types of products. Sharing energy and nutrients inputs/outputs, Zero3's efficiencies are formed through by-product variety rather than unit volume.

Micro anaerobic digestion: The miniaturisation of dry anaerobic fermentation technology allows the clean conversation of organic waste at - or very near - the point of production and consumption. The compactness of micro AD systems allows convenient deployment in shipping containers in modular formats (including stacking). In this manner, odour control, traffic impact, CapEx and public objections are minimised.

Describe the core technology that your solution utilizes.

The containerized system uses anaerobic fermentation. Inside a computer-managed digestion tank, it is able to breakdown food waste through consecutive hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesus and methanogenesis degradation processes.

Per year, the Zero3 micro-digester can convert over 50-tons of food and other organic waste into biogas, 29-tons of marketable liquid organic soil conditioner, 11-tons of bio-gas and 3-tons of dry growing substrate. A combined heat and power (CHP) gas engine uses the biogas to produce an electrical output of 3,500kWh and 26,000kWh of heat. These energy resources can be used for bio-intensive crop production. Zero3's integrated 48m2 insulated polytunnel greenhouse - incorporating LED lighting and hydroponics system – can be sustainably powered by the system's on-site energy throughout the winter months.

A process of 70-degree pasteurisation process and digeponics remove harmful ingredients resulting in valuable organic plant compost and liquid soil conditioner usable for future food production.

Sourcing waste from commercial kitchens within the local community, the micro-digester is able to process 170kg of food waste per day - equivalent to:

• 34 x in-home food waste caddies
• 7 x kerb-side 23-litre caddies.
• 75% of a 240-litres wheelie bin.

Zero3's interconnected ecosystem, allows wastes from numerous producers to be accommodated. By offering Zero3 as an open-access structure: micro-scale craft distillers, craft brewers, coffee rosters and other small-scale industries can be incorporated. Their by-products become regenerative nutrient and energy income/output resource streams. This ultimately offers a neighbourhood-friendly regenerative supply chain that builds positive local relationships, transparency and community-based thrust.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

• Big Data
• Internet of Things
• Biomimicry
• Indigenous Knowledge
• Behavioral Design
• Social Networks

Why do you expect your solution to address the problem?

Zero3's is based on a hugely successful social enterprise created by Zero3's founder (re: https://renewable-world.org/passion-improving-lives-poor/) – a scalable renewable energy microgrid able to empower low-income communities.

Activities:

• Waste management infrastructure: Microdigestor able to process food.
• Food production: Batch-production indoor hydroponic/mushroom cultivation system.
• Educational support: School collaboration and vocational training.

Zero3 short term:  Zero3 is able to consistently supply food crops grown for recreation, vocational learning and commercial purposes.

As a ‘green classroom’, Zero3 is able to support interdisciplinary learning. School children can learn about sustainability, food provenance, the circular economy and curriculum STEM-subjects.

Medium-term outcomes: Food and farming is a recognised cross-cultural integrator - the Zero3 infrastructure allows local community stakeholders to connect in ways that wouldn’t otherwise occur facilitating new social relationships, commercial linkages which foster a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Long-term outcomes: As a scalable infrastructure, Zero3 is able to support urban metabolism as a holistic framework.

Outcome: ‘Growing healthy communities’: On a social-level, Zero3 is able to build personal wellbeing through food cultivation and a recreational pursuits whilst promoting social interactions and friendships across the urban landscape. The nurturing of social interactions across urban communities is an empowerment strategy successfully applied by NGOs globally.

An economic model creates refined by the value chain hierarchy and the circular economy framework where opportunities are created by capturing and exploiting the embedded value within biomass waste streams. It is able to convert low-value [disposable] food waste into energy and other high-value valorised marketable resources.

Select the key characteristics of the population your solution serves.

• Women & Girls
• LGBTQ+
• Children and Adolescents
• Elderly
• Peri-Urban Residents
• Urban Residents
• Very Poor/Poor
• Low-Income
• Middle-Income
• Minorities/Previously Excluded Populations
• Refugees/Internally Displaced Persons
• Persons with Disabilities

In which countries do you currently operate?

• United Kingdom

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

• Denmark
• United Kingdom

How many people are you currently serving with your solution? How many will you be serving in one year? How about in five years?

Current number: N/A (pre-revenue).

1-year target: 700 beneficiaries:

Converting a minimum of 50-tons of food waste per year, Zero3 - with an integral polytunnel and containerized mushroom production - can service 3-5 private community entrepreneurs.

School Collaboration: 500 community beneficiaries: Weekly site school visits will educate children about science, environmental stewardship, climate change and healthy eating. Zero3 will collaborate with local schools to offer a ‘green classroom’ experience.

Volunteering: 200 beneficiaries: Inclusive community mitigating social inequalities and benefiting the socially disadvantaged - including recent immigrants, and those with physical or mental ill health.

5-year target: 15,000-17,000 community beneficiaries:

Three Zero3 franchising installations are forecast within 5-years. As legislation reduces the organic waste sent to landfill.

The Zero3 Career Pathway Programme (CPP):

- Provide education, training and skills development opportunities for children, young adults and wider cross-cultural communities. Learning though school visits apprenticeships, volunteering and entrepreneurship to developing future-ready career paths. 

- Vocational courses for a diverse range of individuals, including those who are vulnerable, such as individuals with mental and physical disability, immigrants, ex-offenders and recovering addicts.

Key elements of the program include:

• Learn to farm indoors:
• Get business exposure (sales and entrepreneurship)
• Community involvement (inspiring  younger generations).

What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?

Zero3’s deployment is perfectly suited as a replicable urban metabolism and ecological/humane smart city solution.

1-year Goal:

• Zero3 ‘Living Lab’ demonstration site in Fife (Scotland, UK).
• Participatory business model (community-supported-agriculture).
• School and interdisciplinary learning initiative.

5-year Goal:

Investment structure enabling the deployment of 3 x Zero3s based on a scalable franchise business model.

At the Year-5 mark, operations will shift focus from waste management to the manufacture of high-value organic chemical/ingredient by-products using a carboxylate platform able to bio-refine:

• Organic plant food
• Insect, animal and fish feed
• Organic chemicals
• Polymers
• Soil remediation additives

Zero3  Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme:

Self-sustaining start-up incubator leveraging its sustainability credentials and brand values. Support low-carbon small businesses which endorse a zero-waste approach. Its key aspects include:

• Start-up platform for helping  a cross-cultural entrepreneurs in a collaborative circular economy shared faculties.
• Early stage investment for start-up enterprises (Zero3 equity ownership).
• Research Lab: In-house laboratory.

Zero3 Social and Recreational Pathway

• Fostering social inclusion and integration to mitigate social stratification relating to urbanization.
• Enabling micro businesses to better connect with their wider community.
• Celebrating local and international diversity. Promoting wider inclusion - cultivate a common cultural identity of local residents.

CEF Career Pathway and CEF Foundation

Provide education, training and skills development opportunities for children, young adults and wider cross-cultural communities. It will support life-long learning though school visits apprenticeships, volunteering, vocational training and entrepreneurship, with the objective of developing relevant future-ready career paths in sustainability and food sectors.

What are the barriers that currently exist for you to accomplish your goals for the next year and for the next five years?

Year One:

Finance:

• Seed funding: Urban Farming Company is seeking $426,000 seed funding for CapEx and working capital for 12-months of Zero3’s start-up and business model validation operation.

Regulation:

• AD regulatory legislation (compliance with the Animal By-products Regulation 1069/2009): Feedstock regulation requires sanitization/pasteurization ‘animal by-product’ regulations – this is important because of the risk of recycling of animal-by-products the digestate is used as a soil substrate for crop production.
• ATEX - The ATEX directive ensures a work space is safe from the risk of an explosive atmosphere (re: storage of explosive materials). ATEX is driven by municipal-size AD plants processing over 100,000-tons of food waste per year. Found in out of town locations, these AD plants are required to be over 50-meters away from residential houses.

Additional:

• NIMBY: ‘Not In My Back Yard’ mentality is a cultural narrative: Waste management has a negative perception; local opposition to the small-sized facilities may block the granting of consent.
• Odour Emissions and air pollution risk may caused by ammonia gas leaks from the micro AD facilities:
• Identifying and building collaborative businesses and partnerships with local community.

Year Five:

• Management team: Building a stellar multidisciplinary senior management team able to scale and scale the wider expansion of the Zero3 network.

• Competition: Access to local food waste stream and other organic waste amongst other waste consumers.

How are you planning to overcome these barriers?

Year One:

Finance: The Urban Farming Company is seeking to raise both grant and seed investment in return for share equity – using private and crowd funding.

AD regulatory legislation: for the first 12-months of operation, the facilities will only process non-meat food waste. In addition, the digestion process will involve sanitation using 70-degree pasteurisation for 60-minutes - both before and after the digestion process.

Overcoming NIMBY’ism: Implementing a positive perception campaign to shift the cultural narrative. Using a monetising of waste resource instead of a waste disposal narrative will be activity promoted.

Zero3’s decentralised modular deployment design is configured with a flexible energy infrastructure. By promoting the system’s community benefits will aid its Zero3 penetration and positive impact through scaling.

Odour Emissions and air pollution will be eliminated through the use of carbon filters to remove ammonia and other potential odour leaks.

To ensure there is a raft of commercially active micro-businesses to collaborate, Zero3’s waste-energy-food infrastructure is designed to be compatible with the future developments in the global bio-economy sector.

The As-a-Service subscription model has been proposed to offset – and easy entry – overcoming the traditionally high one-time CapEx obstacle that can be commercially challenging.

At five years:

Critical business barriers will be overcome by focusing on developing collaborative ties with the urban planning departments to explore how the Zero3 infrastructure can be further embedded within the growth structures of our global cities.

https://zero3.io/

If you have additional video, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link to your video here:

Select an option below:

If you selected Other for the organization question, please explain here.

N/A

How many people work on your solution team?

Fulltime: 

• Jason Morenikeji (Founder and CEO)

Part-time: 

• Hassan Waheed (micro AD specialist)
• Aba-Sah Dadzie (data management and visualisation)

Project adviser: 

• Prof. Joseph Akunna (academic research - Abertay Univerity)

Contractor:

• Michael Chesshire (Lutra - Biogas design, innovation and research)

For how many years have you been working on your solution?

1.5 years

Why are you and your team best-placed to deliver this solution?

A cross-disciplined team, using their perspective skill-sets and professional networks to co-design Zero3's value proposition and commercial.

Jason Morenikeji: Solid 15-year background in innovation, sustainability and industrial design. Drawing from postgraduate degrees in Industrial Design and Architecture, Jason has a successful history of conceiving and implementing food resilience interventions utilising sustainable energy and innovative design thinking. Founder/Director of award-winning The Clean Energy Company (TCEC) - he successfully implemented the award-winning Micro Economy Energy Hub - a food security intervention in East Africa. These successful ‘plug-and-play’ off-grid installations used a community-managed micro-grid. The installations had the capacity to stimulate, develop and sustain a ‘local micro economy’ for small-scale farmers, local entrepreneurs, and micro-enterprises.

Hassan Waheed: Sustainability professional with experience in the small-scale anaerobic digestion. He consults farmers and food processors on the potential and viability of anaerobic digestion. He has experience working with organisations of various sizes within the small-scale AD area. Work includes preparing project management plans, energy and financial calculations, and other aspects required for businesses to make a decision and have the tools for the installation of an AD plant.

Aba-Sah Dadzie: An data analysis expert profession with experience in software & digital media, and game design. Aba-Sah is supporting the project through the development of a waste management interface, data visualisation for day-to-day operations.

Prof. Joseph Akunna: The world leader in AD (academic research - Abertay University)

Michael Chesshire: Leading entrepreneur of micro scale and small-scale farm-scale AD systems (Lutra - Biogas design, innovation and research).

With what organizations are you currently partnering, if any? How are you working with them?

Ricardo: https://ricardo.com - Sustainability consultancy currently offering business support to research, refine and validate a commercial business case for Zero3.  

Climate-KIC: Supporting low-carbon commercial ideas, Climate-KIC hosted the ‘Open Innovation design competition:  Circular Economy Hub South Harbour’. Zero3 was a winner in this Copenhagen-based competition.

Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS): https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/: Funded by the Scottish Government, ZWS to help accelerate Zero3 circular economy and resource efficiency work with SMEs in Scotland. ZWS has offered grant support with their Circular Economy Innovation Fund to help develop Zero3's commercialisation once the project has gained more traction.

Abertay University and Aarhus University: Knowledge-sharing and future collaboration support for academic and private partnerships to develop and research Zero3.

Decisive 2020: http://www.decisive2020.eu/: The DECISIVE project is a consortium developing innovative bio-waste management schemes, targeting urban bio-waste. DECISIVE are supporting academic research and knowledge sharing on developing decentralised bio-waste management schemes for urban and peri-urban area. 

What is your business model?

Zero3 uses a 'As-a-Service' leasing business model. Under the Zero3 brand, the business sells:

• Serviced growing space with the greenhouse (members of the community can monetise small-scale food crop and mushroom production).
• Nutrients (for food crop cultivation).
• Energy (electricity and heat) access for on-site entrepreneurs.

Zero3's competitive advantage arise from the local sustainable valorisation of bio-waste traditionally disposed of for a fee by large-scale waste management service providers. As a alternative to landfilling, Zero3's business model is able to commercialise local waste by exploiting short geographically chains, agile waste collection and short food production. The solution is able to benefit from 'economy-of-scope' production at (or near) to the point of waste production.

By significantly reducing urban supply chains and offering low-cost on site-bio-energy offers incentives for local food and circular economy entrepreneurs. 

By monetising urban the bio-waste flows, decentralised waste management and crop production offers closed-loop community-based infrastructure.

Additional income is envisioned from 'live' vocational training, educational tours and the sale of liquid soil conditioner.

A franchising business model will be used to replication and urban scaling.

Key customers are:

1. Urban farmers and Community group.
2. Remote locations/communities (islands and rural communities.
3. Local schools 
4. Event managers (large sports events, festivals etc).

After 5-years, the business model will evolve to accommodate bio-manufacture using biological derived by-products such as bio-polymers.

What is your path to financial sustainability?

To valid the Zero3 proposition, a working Zero3 Living Lab infrastructure will be established through:

• Grant funding: 50%
• Crowd funding: 25%
• Private seed investment: 25%

The companies long-term revenue will be based on an Infrastructure-As-A-Service business model.

The installed Zero3 infrastructure will be fully maintained, serviced and promoted by Urban Farming Company (Scotland) Limited. 

Paying clients/customers are able to cultivate food crops, herbs, mushrooms.

Further integrated food processes will also available for a fee (drying for herbs, fermentation for Kombucha) and the preparation of high-value botanicals as a secondary value-added service.

Regular vocational training and school/learning site visits will also provide an income stream.

Site replication will be achieved by local crowd funding and private investment supporting the installation of new Zero3 infrastructures. 

Why are you applying to Solve?

MIT's Solve would enhance the profiling and promotion of Zero3 within the global cleantech and start-up sphere:  

• Network opportunities would open up potential funding streams.
• Access to Solve's MIT connections will help to boost bold decision-making and best practices through insightful mentorship and encouragement. 
• Develop commercial legitimacy for a decentralised biomass bio-refinery.
• Leverage multi-sectoral stakeholder involvement to develop and implement a sustainable value chain hierarchy.
• Unlock available expertise within the waste-energy-food sectors

What types of connections and partnerships would be most catalytic for your solution?

• Business model
• Technology
• Funding and revenue model
• Talent or board members
• Media and speaking opportunities
• Other

If you selected Other, please explain here.

Branding consultancy: support crafting a socially and environmentally relevant value proposition and story to enhance Zero3's community and school engagement...and of course, encourage long-term behaviour change related to waste management.  

With what organizations would you like to partner, and how would you like to partner with them?

Collaborative partnerships with future-thinking companies keen to engage with the circular economy.

Waste producing food distribution, processing and supplier:

- High-street fast-food retailers.

- Waste management/logistics companies.

- Animal feed companies

- Insect producers

'Bio' Manufacturer:

Commercial operations with organic inputs where Zero3's post-digestion by-produces will contribute to reduced operating costs:

-   Packaging suppliers

Business/economics consultancy: 

Support exploring business model (re: As-a-service leasing, economies-of-scope):

- IDEO

- IKEA

- Arup

IT/Software development consultancy:

- Development of a payment/exchange platform - linking growers (consumers), waste producers (producers) with the serviced Zero3 infrastructure.

- Development of AI software to capture and quantify food waste data (computer vision, data analysis).

If you would like to apply for the AI Innovations Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution. If you are not already using AI in your solution, explain why it is necessary for your solution to be successful and how you plan to incorporate it.

To enable change in sustainable waste management, it’s essential to assess and quantify urban inputs and output flows. To this end, the AI prize would enable the development of software capable of full understanding and ultimately optimising the circular flows within the waste-energy-food loop.

AI software integrated to Zero3’s feedstock manual input inspection tables would enable data quantification by weight, composition and time. Computer vision and machine learning software would enable Zero3 the opportunity to analyse what, when and how much food waste Zero3 is processing and how to optimise its efficiencies. Most importantly, the data would aid innovative decision-making by synthesizing energy and nutrient fractions for secondary by-product manufacture.

Proposed food waste data sets:

• -Computer vision and user surveys.
• -Humans-as-sensor – triangulation (self-reporting social media) and dissemination
• -AD conversion rates: feedstock types, quantities, cycles.
• -Energy, carbon emissions.
• -KPIs – surveys, ROI and ‘Green’ environmental targets.

AI software aims:

• Assessing environmental impacts of generation, flow and fate of localized waste flows. 
• Material flows and feedback-driven intelligence to enable decision-making (asset tagging, geo-spatial information and data management).
• Identifying future Zero3 siting using resource availability and economies-of-scope outputs.  
• Support existing CRM platforms, POS and inventory systems of restaurants and other organic waste producers to monitor and optimise processes and operations.
• Collecting and categorising the data, identifying trends, feeding into prediction, e.g., availability of feedstock, fines for food waste to landfill, where this is happening - falls under AI/data management/data analytics.  

If you would like to apply for the GM Prize on Community-Driven Innovation, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution.

The GM Prize would enable the co-creation of a transformative human-centred design programme. The essence of Zero3 is to use food and urban farming as a common platform to build community capital. It has been configured to dramatically catalyse and incubate healthy urban communities. With the GM prize for Community-Driven Innovation, Zero3 will be able to partner with local schools and support organisations to design a replicable and accessible open-source Living Lab.

Economic: An ‘infrastructure-as-a-service’ with the ability to collectively monetise people’s waste streams within an ‘economy-of-scope’ business model for adding economic advantage through income generation and creating future-relevant employment opportunities.

Social: Communal wellbeing and active citizenship at grass-root level through innovative interactions that positively integrate people in ways that would not normally occur. This includes individuals or groups might be particularly prone to isolation, to involve local people in creating co-created solutions.

Environmental: Using sustainability as the golden thread running through Zero3’s value proposition, its integrated waste-energy-food loop enables people to benefit from closed-loop waste-management, renewable energy and food cultivation.

By synthesising education, interdisciplinary learning, vocational training and employment, Zero3 can create a school-centred research initiative to:

• Reinterpret school learning and the national curriculum into a Living Lab experience.
• Use canteens and other waste steams as feedstock.
• Linking formal STEM education with experiential learning to encourage long-term positive behavioural change related to circular food waste and sustainable food production. 

If you would like to apply for the Innovation for Women Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution.

N/A

If you would like to apply for the Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution.

As migrants continue to settle into diverse urban settings, immigration has become a critical socio-cultural dynamic for urban development.

Zero3 seeks to better theorize and action open source ways in which migrants can integrate into new urban communities and neighbourhoods. If cities are to prosper on the global stage, diversity must be built into their every aspect. 

The Zero3 open source ecosystem seeks to promote migrant integration through the provision of an infrastructure, economic opportunities. In additional, by facilitating intercultural mediation, the project seeks to provide opportunities for local residents by allow the individual to create them.

The prize would:

- enable the development of a human-centred process to assess commonalities within food waste collection and food cultivation in varies migrant cultures. 

- Act as a means to aid and promote inclusion and integration practice within migrant receiving cities through sharing and learning exchanges.

The Zero3 platform aims to foster a culture of hospitality and an environment of support and understanding for all community members, including those seeking sanctuary. 

By developing Zero3's open accessibility it would aid friendship building, advocacy and inclusion thereby resulting in improved social cohesion and a sense of purpose within their new communities.

If you would like to apply for the Innospark Ventures Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution. If your solution utilizes data, describe how you will ensure that the data is sourced, maintained, and used ethically and responsibly.

There are clear GHG emission benefits from the bio-economy the development of the AI-based platform to help cycle the nutrients within Zero3 closed-cycle loop in line with the principles of the circular economy. In this manner, GHG and primary raw material use are minimized with Zero3 and multiple negative externalities from agricultural production eliminated.

 Zero3 is an urban regenerative engine driving environmental sustainability through the natural conversions of resources using circular economy principles. By design, the benefits are magnified due to positive feedback mechanisms.

The AI-platform development will identify and share value chains, enabling self-regulation and regenerative relationships within urban biospheres, communities and the private/public sector. The closed-loop on-site anaerobic digester - with daily feedstock from local commercial kitchens – decreases GHG emissions associated with the centralised systems.

Waste steam data analysis and front-office interface would allow the Waste-2-Energy-2-Food value-chain to be energy efficiency and effective at by-product recycling and dematerialization resulting in fewer polluting materials.

If you would like to apply for the Morgridge Family Foundation Community-Driven Innovation Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution.

Within its integrated open-source collaborative businesses, visitors and research ecosystem, Zero3 promotes inclusiveness through a mix of commercial innovation, education, training and community interaction.

We will utilise the Morgridge Family Foundation Community -Driven Innovation Prize prize to develop a data-driven platform based on human-centred research to harnesses the benefits of a community-managed ecosystem.

If you would like to apply for the Everytown for Gun Safety Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution. If your solution utilizes data, describe how you will ensure that the data is sourced, maintained, and used ethically and responsibly.

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