Urban Food from Residual Heat – Open Innovation Competition

Deadline: 2017-06-02
Award: EUR 210,000 (approx)

The Swedish cities of Malmo, Lund, Oskarshamn and Bjuv are looking for creative partners with innovative solutions that can be involved in a new venture, to convert waste heat into urban food or other biological production. Clean residual heat emitted from a diverse range of sources – from single refrigerators to industrial sites – represents a waste of both energy and resources that is ultimately detrimental to the local and global environment. These four municipalities plan to use this residual heat to produce fish, vegetables and other biological goods in production units located in their respective urban areas. They aim to incorporate the concepts of sustainability, the circular economy and zero waste into a new service in their localities, one which will have positive socioeconomic benefits such as employment, education and urban gentrification.

In their search for solutions, these municipalities have announced a joint Open Innovation Competition where the winning ideas will be incorporated into developing a final proposal. The competition is supported by Vinnova, Sweden’s innovation agency. The consortia is seeking the submission of ideas to solve a number of challenge areas, as well as those that may build and improve upon the whole concept of using waste heat for food production