2011 – The Second Quarter

The second quarter of 2011 was highlighted by a couple of key milestones and victories, both for ReGenerate and ZooShare.

• ZooShare Biogas Co-operative Inc. was incorporated on April 26, 2011 and received unanimous approval from the Zoo board on June 9, 2011.  The Co-op has received some excellent press since its launch, and it’s now possible to invest in the project.
• The Kawartha General Resource Assessment was published in May 2011, highlighting 12 locations around the region where community-owned biogas plant development would be ideal.
• Facilitated my first Training for Transition in York Region at the Earth Rangers Centre.

What I’ve been up to

• ZooShare Biogas Co-operative - Canada’s first co-operatively owned biogas plant continues to move forward and the second quarter included numerous major milestones hit, like incorporating, securing a letter of intent with a major grocery retailer to supply food waste, receiving the first tranche of grant funding, applying for 3 additional grants (CEPP Education, CDI’s Innovative Co-op Projects, MOE’s Showcasing Water Innovation), the launch of ZooShare.ca and twitter/facebook accounts, and the Zoo Board’s final approval in June.  Stories about ZooShare and its Community Bond offering were featured in the Toronto Star, National Post, Globe & Mail, CBC, and City TV, among others. The ZooShare team also spent an afternoon touring a similar biogas facility in the Niagara region, learning about its operations and spending a nice afternoon team building.
  
  • The learning has definitely continued for me on this project.  Incorporating the co-op has taught me a lot about board governance and co-operatives in general. Working with a City of Toronto organization like the Zoo has required great patience, as contracts and decisions aren’t made nearly as fast as I imagine they will.  I don’t consider patience to be one of my strong suits, so the lesson is valuable.  I spent a significant amount of time over the quarter negotiating with the two major partners involved, another area where I don’t have a wealth of experience, but am learning quickly.  Furthermore, the list of teams that I’ve had to lead over my career thus far could probably be counted on one hand, and the second quarter, more than any other so far really tested my leadership skills.  I had no choice but to work on my conflict management and leadership skills – both of which are are areas that I continue to read about and work on.
    
  • I got to go on a manure ride-along with a couple of Zoo staff members as they made their rounds picking up manure for composting.  At the end of my trip I was rewarded with 3 large bags of manure (okay, they were meant for the lab, but I did keep them in my fridge for a few hours…).  I also had the privilege of attending 2 fun events at the Zoo – the launch of the African Penguin Exhibit and Seafood for Thought.  Both had delicious food, allowed me to chat with Zoo staff and Board members in a more social setting, and gave my wife and I another opportunity to wander the Zoo.
  • My involvement in the ZooShare project has allowed me to meet many new and interesting people – many of whom relish the opportunity to make a cheeky poo joke at least once. The number of times poo makes its way into my everyday conversations has increased significantly – by 412% to be exact.
• Kawartha General Resource Assessment - After publishing the Peterborough GRA in September and integrating the feedback I received, Marty Climenhaga helped to put together the expanded version, covering the entire Kawartha region.
  • Since being published in May, biogas related activity has increased.  We’ve made about 2 trips per month to the area to meet with farmers, economic development officers, people at Green (John Deere) Tractors Omemee, Peterborough Innovation Cluster, Trent University, the County Waste department, and Peterborough Green Energy Co-operative.  We also got to attend the City of Kawartha Lakes Holstien Club’s barbecue in late June at Thursthill Farms, together with Elizabeth Evans, a Trent Masters student contributing to ReGenerate’s development in and around Peterborough.
  • The GRA also led to a community biogas information session, held August 9 in Douro and featured presentations from myself, Chris Duke from OMAFRA and Chris Ferguson from CCS-AgriKomp Inc.
• Continued development of relationship with CCS-AgriKomp Inc. – It’s been almost a year and a half since I first met the 3 guys behind Carbon Control Systems, which this year joint ventured with a German parent, AgriKomp.  The company, based in Millbrook, builds and supplies biogas plants and generators for on-farm purposes.
  • CCS contacted me about the possibility of working together on a project they had in mind for a local farmer. They knew this particular person was interested, but not willing to pull the trigger and the thought was that if we went together and pitched the idea of community-owned biogas (as a Limited Partnership), he would agree.  The end result was more interest, a heavy dose of skepticism and a wait-and-see result.  The man is clearly risk-averse and it has not helped that the only other major biogas development in the region is over budget and behind schedule (but opening this month!). Time and time again, people have brought up this one particular plant as a reason why biogas still isn’t quite there.  It’s unfortunate, but at least people understand the challenges a bit better.
  • This relationship raised a potential conflict in my mind as my original plan saw me working directly with farmers and then making an unbiased technology recommendation.  In this case, I was walking in the door with the technology company, so I obviously couldn’t recommend anyone else.  After some thought, I decided that I was comfortable with this situation, as long as I was also feeling trusting and confident in the people I was working with and their technology, which I do in this scenario.  It also opens another sales channel, as the technology suppliers are also out knocking on doors, trying to get farmers buying their biogas systems – allowing them to bring me in as a partner, if the need is there.
  • In addition to CCS, I also met with the head of PlanET Biogas Solutions for an initial meeting along the same lines, but the relationship has not progressed as far.
• Training for Transition (T4T) - On June 4/5, I facilitated my first T4T together with Sally Ludwig at the Earth Rangers Centre, hosted by Transition York Region.
  • The weekend went very well and seemed to end pretty quickly, despite the two 8-hour days everyone put in.  All of the over 20 participants felt strongly that they learned a lot, were excited to take the skills back to their own respective groups and that it was well worth the time.  They also expressed gratitude and support for my skills as a facilitator, which was reassuring, gratifying and filled me warm fuzzy feelings.  I was most interested by the level of energy I had after each day of training – I guess I enjoy speaking to and working with groups of people… it’s been noted.
  • A few days after the T4T, Transition Toronto hosted a meeting at Metro Hall, which was quite well attended and resulted in the creation/rebirth of West End in Transition (or WEIT, formerly Transition Parkdale/Roncesvalles/Junction, so obviously a big improvement in the name…). I have made a conscious decision to not take any sort of leadership in WEIT, and it’s been better for me and the new organization.
• AgriEnergy Producers Association of Ontario - My involvement with the Ontario biogas association continued over the quarter, in two main areas: 1) tweeting about biogas and related issues in Ontario on behalf of the association and 2) government outreach.
  • As a result of the fact that renewable energy has come up as an election issue and the potential for the Ontario Progressive Conservative party to cancel the Feed-in Tariff program, the biogas association began lobbying MPPs and hopefuls from all three major parties.  I had the honour of meeting with Cheri Di Novo (NDP – Parkdale High Park), and have been trying to meet with Bas Balkissoon (Liberal – Scarborough Rouge River). The idea is to get more people knowing and understanding biogas and its benefits, so that support continues for this simple and meaningful technology. We feel strongly that biogas has many non-energy related benefits in addition to its 24/7 power production, including actual emission reductions, improved nutrient value of manure, reduced groundwater contamination risk and revenue for farmers.
• On-Farm Micro Digesters – a relatively new pursuit for ReGenerate, that began to pique my interest as political risk in Ontario grew and the fact that the FIT program already doesn’t do much for the over 2,000 small and medium sized dairies around Ontario, who aren’t quite big enough to make the economics work.  All of these operations could use a source of on-site energy that also safely processes manure and increases the nutrient value.
  • I’m not the first person to think about this, there are many 20-50 kilowatt scale biogas projects in Germany and Austria already, and one of my partners on the ZooShare project (Angus Power) has already started working through a design which would see gas produced on-farm and used for milk chillers, hot water, farm equipment, and heat for the farmhouse and barns.  I’ve also been in touch with one European company, BIO4GAS, about potentially licensing their technology and installing it around the province, but I’m not sure I want to go down this route.  My original vision of ReGenerate did not include bearing this level of development risk and supplying a specific technology – but then again, lots has changed since I first started sketching out the future. I’m rolling with it until a decision needs to be made, but a couple of farms are interested and I think one will be made by the end of 2011.
• Development of ReGenerate Biogas Inc.- While Marty worked on the GRA and our leads in the Peterborough area, I also started to work with Steffen Kramer, a recent York MBA graduate and Elizabeth Evans in order to manage the increased workload brought on by ZooShare and the completion of the Kawartha GRA.
  • Adding staff opened up the need to starting renting office space and in late June, ReGenerate was accepted into the Centre for Social Innovation.  We began to rent a desk at CSI’s new Annex location on July 1.
  • The need to update and revise regeneratebiogas.com has only increased as a result of the increased profile ZooShare has provided.  Despite having a couple of kick-off meetings with Elastic Mind and building a new site map, I haven’t had the time (or made the time) to write fresh content.  Or write blog posts nearly as often as I would like – my goal was every 2 weeks, but this summer, I let 2 months go in between posts.
  • I also secured errors and omission (E&O) insurance.

Looking Ahead

The 3rd quarter is now 2/3 over, so writing about what’s going to happen, when it’s already happened is a little confusing for me. But anyways, the 3rd quarter has been no less busy and exciting than the last, with a couple of vacations mixed in the middle.  As I said above, ReGenerate hosted a community biogas information session in the Kawartha region on August 9, which went pretty well and generated a couple of additional opportunities.  ZooShare held its Founders Club launch event on July 26 and officially began accepting new members and investors. The Zoo, the grocery retailer and ZooShare continue to work through the final terms of our contracts, which has been a slow and highly educational process. We’ve held two public information sessions at the Zoo and recently submitted our application for Renewable Energy Approval to the Ministry of Environment. Unfortunately, the project has not yet been offered a FIT contract from the Ontario Power Authority and as the calendar flips into September, we are getting a little nervous that we won’t get a response before the provincial election in October.  I try to put it out of my mind most days, but it’s hard not to think about it.

In July, I began to work with James Sbrolla, Entrepreneur-in-residence at the RIC Centre in Mississauga and co-Founder of Environmental Business Consultants.  I’ve been hearing James’ name from his partner John Nicholson (one of the members of my advisory board and ZooShare board member) for a couple of years now, so it was good to finally meet him.  James put me in touch with people from York Region and Durham Region who may be able to help me grow in those areas, and got me in front of the Peel Regional Alliance in late August, a multi-stakeholder group that meets at the RIC Centre monthly to help new/early stage companies get to the next level.

I also got to reconnect with one of the other competitors from last year’s UpStart competition at MaRS. Hala Chaoui of Urban Farms Organic Inc., a producer of vermicasting technology and other related products, is also a resident at CSI-Annex.  We began to share ideas on working together immediately, and I’m excited about getting more involved in this complimentary method of organic waste management.

In late August, ReGenerate submitted a response to a Request for Proposals from British Columbia Ministry of Environment – to make recommendations and help develop the regulations for biogas development in the province.

I’ll also be attending the Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock on September 15, Purple Onion Fest in Peterborough and the Maryland Farms biogas open house, both on September 24.

My ongoing education will continue with Auto Mechanics for Beginners at the Toronto District School Board and an application to DiverseCity Fellows 2012 – a one year leadership development program for rising city-builders who are deeply committed to enhancing their leadership abilities and to working collaboratively with partners across different sectors to address tough issues facing the Toronto region.

The Numbers