RBS names City Farm Systems as a Finalist in the UK’s largest search for new ‘green’ innovation

Innovative technology will enable fresh herbs, salads and small vegetables to be grown at the point of retail or major consumption.

RBS has selected City Farm Systems as a finalist in the Innovation Gateway; a major international search for new ways of reducing energy, water and waste with the best ideas to be tested on the RBS estate of 2,500 buildings and branches across the UK.

Buckinghamshire-based City Farm Systems’ farming technology allows the most perishable and hardest to transport produce to be grown at the point of need. This will allow fresh herbs, salads and small vegetables to be grown at the point of retail or major consumption, such as in glass atriums of corporate buildings.

Jonathan Lodge, CEO at City Farm Systems said:

“We are enormously proud to have been selected as finalists in the RBS Innovation Gateway.  To be recognised as having the potential to play a part in improving the Triple Bottom Line of a business the size of RBS is a real honour”.

“We have long believed we have a brilliant cost cutting and waste saving concept – to have RBS and their expert panellists lend their endorsement has already increased our visibility and should certainly open a few more doors for us - as well as a gateway!  We hope this will be the start of a long and fruitful growing relationship.”

RBS has calculated that the products and services currently on the market would only help it reach around 25% of its goals to reduce energy, water and waste. This led RBS to reach out to innovators, including City Farm Systems in search of brand new ideas to test and install on their buildings and branches.

Launched in March this year, the RBS Innovation Gateway attracted more than 140 submissions in just 40 days, from brand new concepts through to market-ready products and services, from innovators and small businesses (SMEs) around Britain and the world, from Perth in Scotland to Perth in Western Australia.

Over the last six months an independent panel of experts from academia and business has worked with RBS to analyse each submission, to assess the positive impact they could make in driving resource efficiency if the innovation was installed on the RBS estate.

Announcing the Finalists, Marcela Navarro, Head of Customer Innovation at RBS, who is leading the Innovation Gateway initiative, said: “Everyone connected with the RBS Innovation Gateway has been blown away by the innovators’ creativity and dedication to resource efficiency. The quality and the range of ideas have been phenomenal.”

Successful, market ready ideas will be tested in RBS buildings and branches. All successful concepts will be given a £3,000 grant, to develop their idea further before any possible test on the RBS estate.

Explaining how its technology works, Jonathan Lodge, CEO at City Farm Systems said;

“Our technology patent pending technology allows us to automate the transfer of growing crops to and from a wide variety of rooftops.  Rather than work at roof level our staff can monitor the growing crops from floor level where they also harvest and process produce that can be with a consumer within minutes.  Traditional growers can use three days for bagged salads to reach the retail shelf.  With a leading supermarket saying 60% of bagged salads end up wasted we would like to give those three days to the consumer.

“Whilst competitor systems have replaced the motorway element of their transport needs with high overheads we can do away with the need for any transport and related packaging.  This allows us to help towards reducing city centre congestion and pollution.

“Our innovation is less about saving energy in a building and about doing far more with the same amount of energy and reducing costs in the supply chain.  We aim to reduce the amount of unnecessary packing reaching a customer and to use rainwater harvesting to deliver better quality produce.”

For images or further information on this release, please contact Nigel Couzens at nigel@barkingdogcommunications.co.uk or call on 07867 987307.                                      

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