146: Robert Colangelo on Indoor Vertical Farming
Investing in a ‘disruptive’ technology in an effort to become more sustainable.
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Robert is scientist, author, and environmental entrepreneur who founded several leading market-based environmental concerns. Currently he serves as host of Green Sense Radio Show and Founding Farmer/CEO of Green Sense Farms. Robert is recognized as a national expert and an authoritative source on brownfield redevelopment, sustainability and indoor vertical farming.
He is the author of several books and numerous reports and articles on the subjects. He has appeared on national and local TV and radio programs, been quoted in national and local newspapers and has testified in congress in support of environmental legislation.
In This Podcast:
Greg gets to chat with Robert, an environmental entrepreneur who is transforming indoor farming and finding economic solutions in farming. Robert has been seeking out and creating solutions for environmental issues for many years and this has led him to the business he has now which is producing crops year-round. He also talks more about his radio show and introduces the Equity Crowd Funding project he is currently working on and how to find more about it.
Listen in and learn about:
- How he started in the environmental industry looking for market based solutions
- How he wanted to look for solutions that were more sustainable and had economic benefits
- Why he would buy contaminated industrial parks and how he cleaned them up to re-sell
- What lead him to writing books on contaminated property and valuation of impure properties
- What he did in the Soviet Union working with environmental contamination
- His magazine Brownfield News that he started, and the National Brownfield Association that he founded with 1500 members and 22 chapters
- How that lead him to testify in congress about cleaning up properties and putting them to good use
- What “Brownfield” means in both farming and non-farming worlds
- How he moved to indoor vertical farming by trying to put green projects on those brownfields
- How he gathered his connections and started Green Sense Radio to present honest information
- Why he started researching hydroponics and aquaponics
- Some on the people on his team
- What he sees as the three major perception challenges going into vertical farming
- A picture of Green Sense Farms
- Go to 9 Billion Bowls to see the three-minute clip on his farms
- How the vertical farming systems works on the farm and how the watering is automated and computerized
- How they can grow 12,000 heads of lettuce a week in just one of his rooms and 24,000 basil plants on each of his 7 towers per month
- Why the growing rooms are pink and why the spectrums are important
- How vertical food is grown differently than soil grown food
- How he loves getting Chefs to check out his farms
- Including the Eataly executive chefs that picked some of his produce for an interview segment and now they carry the produce in their stores
- How they have Farm-to-Table dinners on a quarterly basis
- More about his trip to Yuma to see the lettuce farms
- Why this is a disruptive technology and why it is working
- Where the logical places are for indoor vertical farming
- What he sees as the future of farming
- What the cold chain is and why it is so important in farming
- The purpose and goal behind the Green Sense Radio Show
- Some of the cool stories that were one the show
- The Equity Crowd Funding project that is helping fund green projects
- How they are one of the first 50 companies to use this new financial vehicle
- www.startengine.com with Green Sense Farms
- The network of farms they are creating on college campuses
As well as:
- Why he is okay with failure and what his three guiding principles are
- Why he feels that a compelling business plan is important when trying to pitch environmental projects
- Why he thinks he has not had his biggest success yet, although his kids are probably going to be the top three successes
Robert’s Book recommendations:
Thomas Friedman – The Earth is Flat, Hot, Flat and Crowded
Bill Covey – 7 Habits of Successful People
Malcom Gladwell – Blink
How to Contact Robert:
Email: Robert@greensensefarms.com
Website: www.greensensefarms.com/us
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