Green Lab, London’s first incubator workspace for sustainable urban farming entrepreneurs and ‘agritech’ startup businesses opens its doors on the 22nd June, in an effort to create a new city community for sustainable food innovators in the capital and country’s growing £14 billion agri-tech sector.
Green Lab occupies a temporary space in Bermondsey, South London within 3Space, an urban regeneration charity.
Green Lab offers a collaborative and affordable studio environment, wet lab facilities, bio lab, growing spaces, access to a making workshop, an event space – and access to a network of experienced mentors and investors.
True to its mission, the lab itself has been designed and built using recycled salvage from a local theatre company, decomissioned biolabs and wood from art freight containers.
Green Lab is a place is for individuals to design, prototype and pilot food production systems, processes and agricultural technologies that can be taken from a bench-scale trial to achieve local and even worldwide impact.
Green Lab is already home to innovators working in aquaculture, lighting systems and alternative food sources. New businesses taking up space will join a growing community of social entrepreneurs who are expert in the field of sustainable food provision. There is enough space at the lab for 12 new businesses, occupying benches/desks on a residency basis with access to the community and facilities.
Andrew Gregson, the founder of Green Lab, said the inspiration to start the lab came from a series of visits he made to Valldaura, a self-sufficient habitat in Barcelona, as well as visits to Kew Gardens, one of the world’s oldest and best-known botanical education facilities.
Gregson, who previously co-founded Fab Lab London, an education and training facility for the capital’s ‘maker’ community, said: “I wanted to create a new creative workspace in London that blended traditional agriculture principles with tech innovation, in a bid to help grow sustainable new food businesses.
“Green Lab provides an opportunity to design sustainable food systems, with access to high-end technologies. We have designed a space that sits at the intersection of great design, technology, science and agriculture.”
Occupying two floors,Green Lab has a unique offer for startups:
• Affordable studio space to incubate early-stage sustainable agricultural & food startups.
• Workshop with hand tools, 3D printer, vinyl cutter, pillar drill and electronics bench
• A vibrant 150 sq.m event space with adjoining kitchen
• 24 bays to showcase examples of agricultural food systems in practice: aquaculture, hydroponics, algae, insects and fermentation
• Fast WiFi and fixed internet access with secure storage for projects
• Wet lab to prototype and experiment with larger installations of agritech and urban farming projects
• Access to a specialist mentor and investor network focused purely on agriculture and urban farming
Green Lab opens its doors to the public from 2pm on Thursday 22nd June to showcase the facilities and the startups based there.
Find out more and register to attend at www.greenlab.org/openday
