Green Era Campus and Argonne align to forge community partner-focused agreement in Chicago

The partnership aims to deliver measurable benefits to disinvested communities

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES, July 1, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- On Monday, June 3, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory participated in a signing ceremony with the Green Era Campus in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood to commemorate a newly established agreement: a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

The MOU will amplify the strengths of the Green Era Campus and the laboratory as they join forces to pursue research opportunities in sustainability in agriculture, renewable energy generation, food equity and access.

Several years in the making, this MOU links Argonne researchers with a community partner deeply involved in community engagement and research efforts aligning with Argonne's science pursuits. The Green Era Campus partners operate a 35,000-square-foot anaerobic digester system on their nine-acre campus and an urban farm with space dedicated to community-driven programming. Green Era Campus is a partnership between Green Era Sustainability, Urban Growers Collective and Green Era Educational NFP.

Both organizations will apply jointly for funding opportunities to advance collaborative research projects to address climate change at the nexus of water, energy, and food and support workforce development and community engagement initiatives.

“This partnership is the first established by Argonne’s Office of Community Engagement (OCE). It's momentous and ambitious as a formal collaborative research partnership with a community-based organization doing historic things in Chicago,” said Argonne Laboratory Director Paul Kearns. “The agreement symbolizes the commitment that Argonne and the DOE have made to community-engaged research.”

Erika Allen, CEO of Urban Growers Collective, president of Green ERA Educational NFP, and co-owner of Green Era Sustainability Partners, spoke to the agreement’s aspirational dimensions. “The holistic approach of the Green Era Campus combines community education, food access and climate resiliency to bring a collective vision to life,” said Allen. “This partnership with Argonne is a reflection and recognition of this vision and an invitation for us all to be a part of the work that will make that vision a reality. The partnership will allow us to engage in and model non-extractive research toward people and the environment while listening, uplifting, and investing in our communities.”

Megan Clifford, Argonne’s associate laboratory director for science and technology partnerships and outreach, stated, “It’s a privilege and an honor to memorialize this relationship for the laboratory, and we’re excited about what can unfold in the weeks, months and years to come through this MOU.”

Robyn Wheeler Grange, the first director of Argonne’s OCE, emphasized that the MOU will allow Argonne to build a structure for working effectively with community-based organizations. Grange stated, “The MOU provides a broad framework for engagement with Green Era Campus’s partners across various science topics: plant science, sustainable agriculture, nature-based solutions to climate change, the circular economy and innovation in decarbonization-related technologies. Engaging on all these fronts can deliver measurable benefits to disadvantaged communities impacted by this MOU.”

The Green Era Campus partners’ history in Chicago stretches back to 2002, when Allen, an urban agriculture pioneer, founded Growing Power of Chicago. The office extends the work of Growing Power Milwaukee, a land trust established in 1983 by her father, Will Allen, a legendary force in urban agriculture.

In 2014, Allen and Jason Feldman, an entrepreneur and environmentalist with Loyola University Chicago, co-founded Green Era Campus, including Green Era Sustainability and Green Era Educational NFP.

Green Era focused on completing the “heavy lift” of remediating the contaminated soil on its nine-acre campus — formerly considered a brownfield site due to its being abandoned/underutilized because of pollution during a previous industrial application. Green Era then constructed its anaerobic digester system, which was completed in 2022.

In 2017, Allen founded Urban Growers Collective. This Black- and women-led not-for-profit supports communities in developing their own food systems by growing, preparing and distributing foods within the communities. Its eight farms are in South Chicago, Grant Park, Roosevelt Square, Educare Preschool Farm, Jackson Park, Altgeld Gardens, King Drive Community Healing & Resilience Garden and the Green Era campus.

Allen’s work earned her recognition as the 2022 James Beard Leadership Award honoree — an award her father had received in 2011. Named in honor of the renowned culinary arts and food media arbiter, the award highlights “the important and complex realms of sustainability, food justice and public health.”

After the construction of the digester, the Green Era Campus is adding community spaces and attractions. These include an urban farm with Urban Growers Collective and greenhouse, a retail store and nursery, a community education center, a community green space and a finished compost distribution cooperative with Urban Growers Collective and Upside Down Consulting.

Green Era’s digester remains a novelty for the region: it's the Midwest’s first self-sustainable anaerobic digester. A digester consumes various kinds of food waste and packaging supplied by partners. As a result, it repurposes millions of pounds of waste that would normally be taken to landfills.

In addition, anaerobic digestion breaks down organic matter into two by-products: nutrient-rich compost and biogas, which can be converted into clean, high-quality renewable natural gas (RNG).

This operation is nearing completion of another major milestone agreement: Connecting to and supplying RNG into the gas grid, which will generate revenue and jobs for residents in the surrounding community.

Green Era Campus has been working with the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation (GAGDC), a not-for-profit organization that promotes the revitalization of low- to moderate-income neighborhoods in Chicago, as the largest investor in the digester.

GAGDC, its development projects, and the disadvantaged communities it serves will benefit from the greater efficiency of the digester’s nitrogen management processes and the revenue generated by the digester’s grid connection.

Scientists in Argonne’s Applied Materials division are pursuing research with Green Era Campus around the anaerobic digester food-waste-to-energy-development initiative. Recently, exciting conversations have begun with our community partner and scientists in Argonne’s Environmental Science division.

As Grange noted, “At Argonne, we couldn’t be more excited to begin exploring, identifying and working with our MOU partner and delivering value to our community-based constituencies.”

Dana Swinney
myWHY Agency
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