9INNOVATE CHALLENGE 2020

‘preparing students for membership of communities that are socially and culturally diverse, for citizenship, and for engagement with the political, ethical and environmental challenges of their times’.

I am proud to be joining this challenge as a mentor for a group of year 9 students at the La Chat campus of ECOLINT international school of Geneva, Switzerland. During six sessions between March and May 2020 we will dive into the challenges and opportunities surrounding food waste.

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9iNNOVATE is a project-orientated activity for students in Year 9, designed to complement the academic curriculum and align with Ecolint’s mission statement to ‘prepare students for membership of communities that are socially and culturally diverse, for citizenship, and for engagement with the political, ethical and environmental challenges of their times’.

Building on from introductory experiences of community action from the Year 6 PYP exhibitions and the Year 8 SDG projects, 9iNNOVATE is the next step in the Continuous Core, focused on the development of collaborative life skills.

In Year 8, all students engaged in a group exploration of an area of interest linked to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The 9iNNOVATE activity now challenges students' innovation and collaboration skills through action. Students will choose one of the SDG themes and in groups of six will work to design a local solution to a global issue, over a 2-month period in collaboration with an expert from a Geneva-based NGO or agency. The project aims at local impact and will be summarized in a 'TEDx' type presentation in May whereby teams will present their solution and its impact to a panel who will comment on its merits.

FEEDING CITIES: FIXING CITIES AT THE GLOBAL GREENROOFS AND WALLS OF THE WORLD SUMMIT 2019

http://virtual.greenroofs.com/speakers/jones-chris/

The Mission of the Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summits is to inform, share, and create a global social media experience online for learning and networking via the power of the Internet.
Held biennially since 2011, the theme of this edition is Cooling and Warming Planet with Living Architecture.

My presentation for this event focusses on the possibilities for integrating urban food production into our existing urban areas and takes a look across this diverse field from indoor climate-controlled food factories, to rooftop soil-based farms, vertical façade food systems, container-based techniques and public realm interventions. The presentation illustrates synergies and spin-off benefits across a wide range of solutions and possibilities (and SDG’s) There are references to case studies and data from urban farming systems across the world as well as cities who have adopted policies and set ambitions that place circularity and sustainable food systems at the heart of their social, environmental, economic and sustainable planning.

In the presentation I also explore how to model the impact of urban farming on the green house gas and carbon footprint of urban areas.

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Curious to learn more about how the food system can help your City Town, Village, campus or other development work towards achieving climate targets and become even more responsible, attractive, economically and socially diverse... then please get in touch: or