GUELPH – A Smart Cities Challenge application has been filed by the City of Guelph and the County of Wellington and now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if it results in a $10 million prize and an even bigger boost to the local economy.
After nine months of planning involving more than 150 community partners, the City of Guelph and County of Wellington submitted their Smart Cities Challenge application to Infrastructure Canada. Key partners celebrated the submission on March 25.
The community will hear May 14 if the proposal will be awarded one of two $10 million prizes to create Canada’s first circular food economy.
A joint press release from the city and county indicates that presently about one-third of edible food is thrown away while up to 17 per cent of families in the community are identified as food insecure, and the cost of nutritious food has increased 27 per cent in the past eight years.
Through community collaborations and the use of data, technology and the expertise in the region, Our Food Future will allow Guelph-Wellington to move from the current “take-make-dispose” system to Canada’s first circular food economy, a sustainable and thriving food system with three goals:
– a 50 per cent increase in access to affordable, nutritious food;
– 50 new circular food business and collaboration opportunities; and
– 50 per cent increase in economic revenues by reducing or transforming food waste.
The idea was first presented to Infrastructure Canada in April 2018, and Guelph-Wellington was announced as a finalist on June 1. The partners received $250,000 to further develop the strategy and finalist submission. The proposal identifies nine priorities the community will tackle to move the work forward:
– asset and behaviour mapping, a data analysis project to understand current food assets and gaps in local communities;
– work with local agencies and groups to develop a Food Security and Health Action Plan;
– launch a circular food economy lab to nurture ideas that will reinvent food systems and solve food problems;
– establish an Impact Fund to support innovative ideas that address food issues;
– leverage community experts and educators to provide public learning labs, food innovation education and training;
– provide business tools and services to help food and beverage organizations and businesses increase efficiencies and minimize food waste;
– continue a public awareness campaign to educate Guelph-Wellington residents on the food industry, the real cost of food waste and a circular food economy;
– explore adding a “social currency” to current carbon credit sales that could be used to support a green local economy; and
– use data collected from Guelph’s technology-enabled residential waste carts to determine how food by-products can be better used.
In addition to a possible $10 million prize from Infrastructure Canada, organizers have identified in-kind opportunities and additional funding to reach a total $16.8 million budget for these projects.
This work is already attracting international attention. In January, UK-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global expert in developing circular economies, profiled Guelph-Wellington as one of four focus cities; authorities in Queensland, Australia are inquiring about the initiative; earlier this month project leaders were invited to share highlights at the Global Food Summit in Munich, Germany and are invited to share insights at the United Nations Environment Great Lakes Circular Economy Forum in June.
Closer to home, the collaboration is generating conversations and food-focused programming through libraries, schools, restaurants and community wellbeing organizations such as the YMCA-YWCA of Guelph, as well as sparking new business ideas and investments amongst local businesses and food agencies.
“This is a really exciting project. It’s a real great partnership between the city and the county and all the other partners,” said Wellington County warden Kelly Linton at the March 28 county council meeting, following a presentation on the project. “Hopefully we get good news (on May 14), but if we don’t we’re on the right track with this partnership and doing some good work here.”
“I was raised on a farm. We never wasted anything. So this is really good that we’re back into that,” commented councillor Allan Alls.
Guelph Deputy CAO Stewart Skinner said the project would raise the region’s profile on a national and international level.
“You want to solve food problems? You come to Guelph-Wellington I think that’s a key message,” he stated.
The project has already led to results such as new business launches and access to funding sources and will continue to provide local benefits regardless of whether the project is among the challenge winners or not, said Barb Swartzentruber, the city’s executive director for innovation and intergovernmental services.
“Whether we win on May 14 or not, we really have built quite a collaboration,” she noted.
