The Plant

For incubating high-tech agriculture and working to grow food without using any energy or producing any waste. By the end of 2015, The Plant, Chicago’s first vertical farm, will be net-zero energy and waste. The complex opened to green business in late 2010; in 2011 a slew of folks moved in, including the New Chicago Beer Company and Skyygreens, producing such goods as aquaponic vegetables, grown using fertilizer produced by tilapia-waste-eating algae. The entire building houses a complex system of input-output loops to reach the net-zero goals, and next year it will get an anaerobic digester to turn waste into energy.