Green Era Winning Major Awards Before Project Completion

Green Era is constructing a sustainable campus in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood in Chicago that will include a 2-acre clean energy generation facility anaerobic biodigester, an urban farm, greenhouses, an outdoor fresh produce market, a visitor’s center with classrooms for community activities, and a STEM education center.

Green Era, a CCLF financed project, has done it again winning the prestigious Climate Challenge Cup. The Climate Challenge Cup is a new international competition to celebrate transformative civic research partnerships in the UK and US between research bodies, civic organizations and local communities to combat climate change. Only two awards were given during the United Nations 2021 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow with 20 world leaders present and over 40,000 registered participants. Green Era won in the Climate Change Adaptation category for projects that are working with communities in regions affected by climate change to mitigate or adapt to the effects it is having.

Green Era is constructing a sustainable campus in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood in Chicago that will eventually include a 2-acre clean energy generation facility (anaerobic biodigester, “AD”), an urban farm, greenhouses, an outdoor fresh produce market, a visitor’s center with classrooms for community activities, and a STEM education center. The renewable energy and urban farm campus is located on an old automobile impound lot that drained wealth from local residents as they paid towing fees and fines at 650 W. 83rd St in Chicago. The site is also a brownfield which Green Era and its partners are cleaning up to provide training leading to well-paying career jobs in the clean energy industry. The project is repurposing vacant property so there is no displacement of existing businesses or residents.

Green Era and its partners also won the highly sought-after Chicago Prize awarded by the Pritzker Traubert Foundation. This $10 million award went towards housing and renewable energy. Urban Growers Collective is a tenant of Green Era and will manage the urban farm and plans to address local food insecurity by growing fresh foods in the greenhouses which means jobs and locally sourced healthy foods for residents. It will grow strawberries and greens year-round using compost created by the AD. Urban Growers Collective is also working with 180 students in their Youth Corp program and Architecture and Culinary Trade students from Simeon Career Academy, a Chicago Public High School located 2 blocks from the Green Era Campus.

“When youth are able to see their vision become reality not only do we activate agency but community and intergenerational ownership in the work being accomplished at the site. They have provided input into the landscape design recommending the floating boardwalk and feature attractions that can be pointed out during tours of the site. It will also honor the past by using indigenous plants in the landscaping and have 72 trees with the goal of evolving as the community’s needs change. Urban Growers Collective selected Taylor Staten of TNS studio to both capture the vision of the Community Education Center but to also encourage and introduce Black Women leaders in the industry.” Erika Allen, Co-founder/CEO of Urban Growers Collective and Green Era/President.

Allen hopes to create a minimum of 45 jobs in the urban agriculture infrastructure being built, including greenhouse or climate-controlled production; retail sales of fresh produce, plants and compost at the garden center and to spur 80 plus jobs and most importantly employee owned and operated new enterprise as micro-haulers, landscapers, energy transport and tech positions.

The goal is for south and west side residents to become emerging Green Economy entrepreneurs.

The AD is being installed by Green Arrow Engineering. Green Arrow has much of the equipment already in place and when completed the AD will be able process 1.8 million gallons of food waste at any given time. Green Arrow will operate the biodigester and brings years of experience working in the fields of anaerobic digestion, wastewater treatment, and manufacturing to the project team. At present they are operating 5 similar size ADs for third party owners – two in Ohio and three in New York. They have also been engaged to design, build and operate the NYC biodigester, which will become the largest biodigester in the world.

The AD is being installed by Green Arrow Engineering. Green Arrow has much of the equipment already in place and when completed the AD will be able process 1.8 million gallons of food waste at any given time.
Touring the Interior of the Anaerobic Digester which will open doors to careers internationally to local youth learning about sustainable energy in the Auburn Gresham community.

Auburn Gresham is a community that has lost residents when factory jobs disappeared leaving behind residents with low median incomes, high unemployment, depressed housing values and one of the highest food insecurity rates in Chicago. Green Era and its award-winning sustainable energy farm is changing that narrative creating a destination for research, high tech career training, healthy food distribution and much more. In fact, they have just partnered with an arts group that will tile the entire outside of the facility which is estimated to take ten years to completely cover the 10,000 sq. ft. of office, classroom and visitor center space and 50,000 sq. ft of AD space.  

An arts group will use the Green Era site as a canvas with plans to tile the entire outside of the 10,000 sq. ft. of office, classroom and visitor center space and 50,000 sq. ft of AD space.

CCLF provided an initial $3 million participation loan to this project and another $50,000 secured from Opportunity Finance Network Energy Efficiency Grant Program. Other financing participants include Benefit Chicago, IFF, The Reinvestment Fund, public agencies, individual investor groups and US Bank as the NMTC investor.