Within the European Commission’s Nature-Based Solutions Task Force 3: “Governance, Business Models and Financial Mechanisms”, EdiCitNet project lead Suhana E. Reddy was part of a joint publication which explores the different possibilities of financing nature-based solutions (NBS). NBS offer multiple solutions to urban challenges simultaneously, but realising funding for NBS remains a challenge. However, by collaborating and sharing knowledge through the EC Task Force, a set of EU projects has now laid important knowledge foundations, reviewing existing literature, and compiling empirical evidence of different financing approaches and the business models that underpinned them.

This paper presents the findings of these projects from a business model perspective to improve our understanding of the value propositions of NBS to support their mainstreaming. This collaboration provided comprehensive insights into collaborative work within a transdisciplinary group and working together with all members of the publication writing team in order to improve the scientific landscape and the view on NBS was a fruitful experience. Edible-NBS of course offer an added social value, when compared to non-edible NBS, while Edible City Solution Initiatives also play a crucial role in Nature-Based Solution business models. You can read the full text of the publication here.

On August 17th, the EdiCitNet team took part in the Open Humboldt Festival, a series of public events held throughout August that celebrating and uniting science and art. Located at the university’s North Campus in Berlin Mitte, the team had the opportunity to present the project to members of different university departments and members of the general public.

For this afterwork event revolving around food and health they were joined by EdiCitNet Marketplace member Insec2Eat, a startup which offers insect snacks and flours as an alternative protein source. Despite the bleak weather, visitors were able to enjoy not only this whole range of exotic treats, but also learn about other ways that the EdiCitNet project is making cities greener, more sustainable and more inclusive – and what they can do to get involved.

It is not very straightforward to survive as an ECS (Edible City Solution) initiative under the immense cost pressure often found in urban settings. Whether or not an ECS initiative is a for-profit business or not, at the end of the day, financial sustainability is crucial in order to maintain impact and change the urban food system. That’s why, last year, the Norwegian NGO Nabolagshager hosted, in collaboration with other EdiCitNet partners, including the Borderstep Institute, an online interactive workshop called “Growing Jobs in Urban Agriculture”.

The workshop aimed to facilitate exchange among practitioners working on urban agriculture, researchers, policy-makers and aspiring entrepreneurs on a major challenge urban farmers are facing: the need to develop business models that are tailored to their community’s needs and the wants of their customers.

An interactive space was provided for participants to explore business models for urban agriculture, with 8 different sessions of 30 minutes each. The sessions were highly interactive with short sessions of knowledge transfer from experts in the field accompanied by space to work in groups through real-life cases. The goal was for participants to gain an in-depth understanding of how to develop their own business model for an urban agriculture enterprise.

This collaborative work paved the way for the creation of a new practical playbook called “Growing Jobs in Urban Agriculture”, a publication designed to allow existing ECS initiatives – and aspiring ones – to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for economic and social success, and equip them with a tool to explore solutions and address the needs of their organisations.

This playbook follows the Edible City Solutions Canvas (ECS Canvas) tool, an upgraded and calibrated economically sustainable model Canvas for organisations that provide sustainable food solutions within the urban setting. Its predecessor, the Business Model Canvas, is a one page overview which informs how the key drivers of a business fit together. Here the ECS Canvas has taken into account the fact that not all ECS aim to be a ‘business’. This tool consists of 11 segments enabling readers to dive deep into various dimensions of achieving economic sustainability to maintain and expand their impact.

This publication is a useful resource for all ECS initiatives, organizations and entrepreneurs who are working to have sustainable impact on the food system. It is also a helpful tool for those working to help ECS initiatives towards this goal.

It is available now for download at the EdiCiNet Marketplace: www.edicitnet.com/biz

The non-public workshop took place on the 7th of June 2021. The main aim was to support the implementation of edible city solutions in Berlin’s social disadvantaged neighborhoods. This half-day event was aimed at the members of the neighborhood management program in Berlin.

The workshop benefitted from the inputs of Simone Antony (District administration Marzahn-Hellersdorf) and Annette Biernath (degewo AG).

The two speakers gave a quick overview and clarified questions about the implementation of different ECS in cooperation with the district administration or housing companies.

Afterwards, an exemplary ECS project was planned in small groups using the design thinking method. One group focused on “participation and integration through edible city solutions”, while the other group dealt with “strengthening resilience through edible city solutions”.

At the end, participants gave short descriptions of problems and challenges in implementing edible city solutions and citizen participation in their neighborhoods. These are valuable impulses for the upcoming workshop in August.

The EdiCitNet Awards aim to recognize, inspire and promote innovative ECS initiatives, processes and approaches with a demonstrated societal impact through the award of three prizes in the following categories:

–             Most innovative individual action

–             Most innovative social engagement process

–             Best overall Edible City approach

Find more information here: https://www.edicitnet.com/awards/

Awards are open to any individual, group or organization located in one of the EdiCitNet member cities (see here). Candidates can apply directly or nominate a “local hero” or initiative. The same application can be used to apply for each of the three categories. Different initiatives by the same individual or organization require separate applications.

Selection will be based on a two-stage process, consisting of peer-voting (by 15th of August) followed by expert selection (by 15th of September).

Evaluation criteria:

–             Innovation

–             Relevance

–             Inclusivity

–             Impact

–             Upscaling & replication

Prizes:

–             A promotional package, consisting of documentation and promotion via

the EdiCitNet social media and communication channels.

–             A travel grant to fund their participation in the EdiCitNet Awards

Ceremony (to be held in late September/early October). Please note: this prize is only available to those individuals and initiatives that are not already receiving direct funding from the EdiCitNet project

Timeframe:

–             Deadline for applications: 30th of July

–             Deadline for peer-voting: 15th of August

–             Notification of results: 15th of September

–             Announcement of Winners at the Annual EdiCitNet Conference: Late September/ Early October

WP2 team has shared several good news such as:

• The submission of second article of WP2 entitled “Tools for edible cities: A review of tools for planning and assessing edible nature-based solutions”.
• The increased collaboration between WP1,2,6 and 7 for the integration of the project network marketplace, and toolbox.
• EdiCitNet DATABASE has more than 20 different countries and more than 100 cities. These cities and countries are represented on the form of more the 300 PROFILES.
• The SEARCH TOOL brings the possibility of searching for interactive and non-interactive profiles and by location.
• A new version of the PERFORMANCE ASSESMENT TOOL brings two novelties. User can explore, compare and check out the top 10 Edible City Solutions per typology (e.g. community gardens) in terms of sustainability, urban challenges and ecosystem services.
• The EDIBLE CITY GAME. The urban model of SFL is built, tested and calibrated by SFL’s practitioners that are playing in single-player modality. Practioners have showed a great interest in the functionalities of the serious game.
• DESIGN AND PLANNING TOOL. The “Individual level” and “City level” options were replaced by, respectively, “Create your own ECS” and “Create a city plan of ECS”. The former option is intended for individual users, to discover resources requirements and expected yield. The latter is to be used by city planners, to investigate the impact of ECS on city’s food production, resources management and sustainability. “Create your own ECS” option is almost fully operational. We decided to remove the map on the entering page so that the user will only have to provide the plot area size and will not have to draw polygons (to be implemented very soon). “Create a city plan of ECS” option currently allows for the user to draw polygons or areas, corresponding to neighbourhoods, city districts, etc. which they want to analyse. For these areas, land uses are automatically generated based on the Urban Atlas.