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Plant Chicago is a nonprofit dedicated to promoting sustainable food production, entrepreneurship, and building reuse through education, research and development. To this end, Plant Chicago is repurposing a 93,500 sq. ft. retired meatpacking facility, The Plant, into a net- zero energy vertical farm. A complex and highly interrelated system, one-third of The Plant will hold aquaponic growing systems and the other two-thirds will incubate sustainable food businesses by offering low rent, low energy costs, and a licensed shared kitchen. The Plant will create 125 jobs in Chicago’s economically distressed Back of the Yards neighborhood – but, remarkably, these jobs will require no fossil fuel use. Instead, The Plant will eventually divert over 10,000 tons of food waste from landfills each year to meet all of its heat and power needs.