COVID-19 has disrupted many of the ways we respond to daily life and the activities that inform our days. In correspondence with Illinois’ “shelter-in-place” order, residents have been limited to only “essential” activities, those of which we absolutely cannot forgo, such as grocery shopping. Often considered a mundane chore, grocery shopping is now viewed with a sense of scrutiny and caution as it makes us susceptible to germs left behind from other unsuspecting shoppers. Th

This past week, Plant Chicago welcomed sixteen local small businesses to their first Circular Economy (CE) Leaders Network meeting. First of its kind, the program assists entrepreneurs in Chicago’s South Side who seek to implement sustainable practices into their existing business model. Businesses start off by receiving The Circular Economy Toolkit for Small Business and setting a primary goal that they would like to achieve by the end of this year. The toolkit defines Circu

Article by Eva Chancé, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) (This research was led by Eva in partnership with Plant Chicago and Research Steering Committee members from Illinois Institute of Technology and University of Illinois Chicago) In this paper entitled “The Plant – an experiment in urban food sustainability” and published recently in the journal Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, we present the concept of urban food production and oppor