BIODIVERCITY General description of the SME BiodiverCity is an association founded in 2011 by researchers and students of the former Faculty of Agriculture (now Department of Agricultural Sciences, http://www.scienzeagrarie.unibo.it/en) of the University of Bologna. The association aims to support and promote biodiversity in its different forms within the urban environment. Since its creation, the association has involved young people in the city of Bologna. Members of BiodiverCity are students and researchers of Bologna University that work together in joint projects with citizens in order to promote innovative uses of urban space. University researchers provide high scientific contribution, students work manually to build structures and growing plants to increase their experience and cultural background, and citizens collaborate expressing the needs to the municipality. One of the main objectives of BiodiverCity is to restore biodiversity in highly anthropic urban areas, bringing natural spaces where missing, with the production of vegetables, ornamental and aromatic plants, constituting ecological corridors for animals, beneficial insects for biological control and pollinators. Moreover, the actions of BiodiverCity are designed to develop networks and building relationships with and among different ethnic, social and cultural communities living in Bologna. Description of productive activities BiodiverCity promotes awareness on biodiversity and actively participates in different information campaigns. In the last 4 years BiodiverCity started different projects in the city of Bologna with the intent to develop tools such vertical structures, soilless systems and water collection, for the promotion of new forms of urban horticulture and biodiversity conservation in urbanised areas. The main project developed by BiodiverCity in the urban area of Bologna is Green Housing that is described below.
Green Housing The Green Housing project started in spring 2011 with the installation of a vegetable garden (Fig 1) on the flat roof of the public building number 10 in via Antonio Gandusio in the district San Donato of Bologna, Italy (Fig. 2). In the spring 2012 a second edition of the project has allowed the creation of two gardens on the roof of the building n 6 and 12 in the same complex of the public housing. In the spring 2013 condos of Via Gandusio and BiodiverCity together continued to enlarge the garden to obtain a larger vegetable production to be distributed among all the inhabitants of the buildings. The Green Housing project is financed by the Municipality of Bologna, with the support of the Emilia Romagna Region and Acer, a public real estate agency. In addition, Horticity and the University of Bologna collaborated at the design and realisation of the project. Figure 1: Roof garden in via Gandusio
Figure 2: Green Housing in Via ia Antonio Gandusio in Bologna: 1400 m from the centre of Bologna, 250 meters from the walls of the medieval old town. Location and environmental factors BiodiverCity is based in Bologna and operates operates throughout the territory of the province of Bologna. Occasionally BiodiverCity also carries out projects in other areas of Italy. The association has undertaken several collaboration with the city of Bologna such as the project Green Housing (http://www.bdcity.it/wordpress/progetti/greenhousing/).bdcity.it/wordpress/progetti/greenhousing/) for the production of vegetables and aromatic essences on the roof of buildings, and Giardini in Rete (http://www.bdcity.it/gir/) that throughout meeting with students aims to promote topics regarding city resilience, resil production of food with vertical gardens and recycle of material and structures for the creation of urban green spaces. In addition BiodiverCity is running urban horticulture projects in cooperation with Bologna Municipality and the Rescue AB AB (Research (Rese Centre in Urban Environment for Agriculture and Biodiversity of the University of Bologna), and more specifically: Orti della Fornace and Piazza dei Colori both aimed at creating urban community gardens in public housing environment as a mean for enhancing ncing social inclusion and active citizenship suburban areas of Bologna.
Figure 3: A soilless system built within the project Orti della Fornace, by participants in a public context for the re-vitalisation of the area organised by BiodiverCity, Municipality of Bologna and Rescue AB (Unibo). Markets and marketing Key Key activities: participants: Share economy Municipality of Bologna, Awareness raising and Rescue AB education on (Unibo) biodiversity, urban horticulture and social Various inclusion through associations projects and workshops and SME: Key resources: - Ceriss ER - Public funding from - Horticity the Municipality of Bologna Teatro dei mignoli Value proposition: Dissemination of scientific knowledge and practices on urban horticulture and biodiversity with citizens and students Customer relations: Partnership Co-creation informal Marketing channels: social media Market segments: Citizens who want to know more about urban horticulture, students. Cost categories Revenue sources Staff cost Informational material, workshop material, equipment/tools Support from Bologna Municipality and private foundations
Key participants: The activities of BiodiverCity are conducted by researchers and university students and citizens who combine their experience and enthusiasm to carry out the proposed projects. Currently, there are partnership with the municipality of Bologna and Rescue AB of UNIBO, as well as with local schools and associations. Key activities: The main activity is the dissemination of knowledge and practice on themes like urban horticulture and social inclusion through workshops and projects involving various associations, schools and citizens. Key resources: The funds come from private foundations and from the municipality of Bologna. Value proposition: BiodiverCity intends to raise awareness of citizens on environmental town issues and realise green structures that can dive ecological benefits in urban spaces, improve environmental conditions, produce plants such as vegetables and aromatic plants and increase the health of everyday life. The main source of income derives from collaborations with provincial and municipal agencies that support the outreach activities conducted by BiodiverCity. The projects have a duration of one or two years and are renewed on the basis of the public demand and by the interest of the institutions that finance them. Customer relations: The relations with citizens are informal and based on co-creation in all the activities. The relation with the municipality is mainly in form of partnership and co-design of projects. Market segment: Clients are mainly citizens who benefit from the knowledge of the association for a personal cultural enrichment, but also schools in case of educational projects. Marketing channels: The association is contacted through telephone, email and website. Dissemination and sponsorship of the activities of the associations is supplied directly through the activities in the city.
Cost categories: The main costs are linked to staff and materials needed for the workshops, gardens and projects. The cost reduction may result from the fact that many materials are reused or recycled. Revenue source: The association has an income around 3000-6000 euros per year deriving the collaboration with the municipality or other foundations. The earning is reinvested in the workshops that are conducted by the members in the city on in the region Emilia Romagna. Conclusion The association is particularly important within the city of Bologna because it proposes a cultural and material development of urban green, showing the benefits this ecological approach can have for the local community. The association has a positive impact especially on issues of social and ecological welfare. For the future, BiodiverCity aims to broaden the users such as citizens interested in the expansion of green spaces in their condos and public interested to ecological aspects in urban environment, by self-sponsorship which occurs mainly during the activities carried out in the city. BiodiverCity has low operating costs and no employees but only members of the associations voluntary students, so it has high capacity of sustainability. Its activities will continue until there is vivid interest among municipality and citizens in the activities of BiodiverCity and until university researcher and students will maintain a high interest in dissemination and participatory events. Contact details: Website: http://www.bdcity.it/ Contact person: Daniela Gasperi daniela.gasperi2@unibo.it The URBAN GREEN TRAIN project has been funded with the support of the European Union and the Italian National Agency for the Erasmus+ Programme. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Union and the Italian National Agency for the Erasmus+ Programme cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
HORTICITY General description of the SME Horticity is a commercial company founded in 2006 in Padova (Italy) and nowadays has its headquarters in the city of Bologna. The company is composed of seven associates: university and private researchers, agriculture professionals and trainers, teachers. All the associates are variously involved in urban agriculture and social farming. The core activity of Horticity is to design and develop innovative products and solutions for urban agriculture and ecology. Research and education activities are an important part of the company, as well as training and international cooperation, both in the field of research and education and in the field of social cooperation (food security). Improve diet thanks to self-production and reduction of food expense for low income people, is one of the goals of the company, as well as, from an ecological point of view, the construction of green corridors in the cities. The company is an SME with seven associates all (more or less) with the same amount of shares. In addition to the work (usually unpaid) of the owners, some occasional specialised collaborators (agronomists, designers, and so on) allow the performance of the initiatives and the conduction of paid works. Description of productive activities Horticity has participated in several international cooperation projects, aimed at the sustainable development (from environmental and social point of view) of agricultural production. Many countries of four Continents such as Brazil, Peru, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Myanmar, have been the contextt of these projects. In urban areas of Italy, Horticity promotes and conducts projects for the construction of gardens on rooftops, balconies and terraces, with the idea
of bringing green spaces and agricultural production into the city. Research and didactic activities are conducted primarily in Italy and to a lesser extent in other countries. Handicraft, the use of recycled materials and growing systems with high content in knowledge and technology (e.g. remote controlled hydroponic systems) characterise the products and solutions offered by Horticity. In the cooperation projects in which Horticity is involved, the focus is in the components of research and experimentation, collective farming, education, social inclusion, sustainability, gender equality and women's empowerment. In addition to the cooperation projects and participation to European research and educational projects, the key products of the company are: small horizontal and vertical gardens. These are realised for privates, commercial companies or municipalities that want to set up a small automatised soilless vegetable garden on rooftops, or utilising living walls or building structures with plants that has also a high architectural value. Horticity uses both low-tech and highly technological growing systems. It makes use of LED lighting systems (in indoor systems) and of automatic hydroponic solutions for soil-less horticulture. Recently, following the customer and partner demand of an always more efficient growing systems from an energy saving point of view, the company is going to specialise in the remote control of the nutritional status and moisture of the substrate through wireless sensors. In addition to projects and systems described above, Horticity has developed, in collaboration with commercial and productive partners, some small products (for example "Hortilla: the bottle garden", a recycled little Hydroponic system for home herb production) that are primarily intended to shops of ecological products, in order to partially fund the other projects and the research and development sector of the company. Location and environmental factors Horticity do not manage a farm. Researchers of Horticity propose innovative solutions (including, for example, closed cycle irrigation systems, rainwater collection, etc.) to exploit urban vacant spaces or convert uncultivated lands and optimise them for small scale production obtained from inhospitable spaces or in lack of soil. Through its projects and solutions, Horticity proposes the utilisation of the urban vacant spaces to grow plants and vegetables. The company is able to set up plant growing systems on rooftops, small gardens on the ground in urban and peri-urban areas, build vertical structures for the growth of aromatic, vegetable and flower species, building green infrastructure with plants useful for pollinators and beneficial insects. The construction of green corridors in the city is one of the aims of the company from an ecological point of view.