The Finalists

These are the 20 finalists in the competition. Click on Read More to learn more about each proposal and then give them a star rating and add your comments (You must be logged in to rate and comment). Remember, you can earn points for each star rating, comment, and improvement suggestion you make and the more points, the more chances to win one of our great weekly prizes.

View all proposals from Round 1 of the competition

MUSHROOM CITY. Social Enterprise (MCSE) Toronto (Finalist)

Submitted by gelmanc on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 13:30

MUSHROOM CITY. Social Enterprise (MCSE) Toronto, is proposed as a social enterprise. Its purpose is to alleviate hunger, reduce Toronto’s CO2 emissions and organic waste. This would be accomplished by using discarded coffee grounds from local coffee shops in the city as feedstock for the production of organic Oyster Mushrooms.

Rating:

Our Power - Driving Ontario's Solar Energy Revolution! (Finalist)

Submitted by Our Power on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 10:33

If you are interested in becoming a green energy innovator or would like to simply reduce your home's carbon footprint, then Our Power is the tool for you!

We walk you through your initial steps to making a positive impact on climate change by conducting an assessment of your property's solar potential and connecting you to a reliable installation company in your area.

Our Power enables residential solar energy installations, simplifies your solar decision, and connects industry partners to homeowners.

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Project Neutral. Transitioning neighbourhoods to carbon neutrality. One neighbourhood at a time. (Finalist)

Submitted by Karen Nasmith on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 15:30

Project Neutral is an ambitious initiative that aims to create the first urban carbon neutral neighbourhood in Canada. It was officially launched by volunteer members of CivicAction’s Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) in December 2010.

The Rationale

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SolarShare Community Solar Bonds (Finalist.)

Submitted by Reblacka on Thu, 10/20/2011 - 11:20

UPDATE: 11/11/14

Thanks for the comments and words of encouragement on the SolarShare submission conversation and posting page - in particular we appreciate the intent of most of the commentators to participate in SolarShare's community power model when we reach regulatory approvals stage.

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The Fruitful Forest: Developing a Fruit Tree Care Program for Toronto (Finalist)

Submitted by Not Far From Th... on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 11:03

UPDATE: The feedback we have received through ClimateSpark has been so helpful in refining this project idea. As we move further into developing a fruit tree care program, each piece of advice and feedback lays out the path. In addition, we have had several opportunities outside of ClimateSpark since we first submitted this proposal in Round 1. Here's an update:

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unstash - peer-to-peer platform for sharing (Finalist.)

Submitted by Lon on Tue, 09/27/2011 - 01:08

'Unstash' is a peer-to-peer online service for collaborative consumption. Our mission is to make sharing awesome again. We tackle the often unspoken cause behind greenhouse gas emissions and climate change - our unending consumption of goods.

While we tend to focus on solutions like transportation and energy use when dealing with climate change, the reality is 'the stuff we consume accounts for nearly half of green house gases"

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Vermicomposting Toronto (Finalist)

Submitted by WormGirl on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 10:40

Vermicomposting Toronto is a plan to install environmentally sustainable vermicomposting systems for processing pre-consumer organic waste produced in community organizations. Vermicomposters and organic collection services will be maintained by organization's clients. This will provide a beneficial and stimulating activity for clients as well as providing a revenue-stream for the organization.

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Young Urban Farmers CSA (Finalist.)

Submitted by YUF CSA on Thu, 09/15/2011 - 14:42

Young Urban Farmers CSA is a non-profit organization with the goal of reconnecting people to fresh, locally-grown food. We do this by converting Toronto’s backyards into a sustainable source of fresh, delicious produce for its urban inhabitants and distributing the food via a community shared agriculture (CSA) model.

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ZooShare (Finalist.)

Submitted by danielbida on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 17:19

ZooShare Biogas Co-operative Inc. is a non-profit renewable energy co-operative that is developing a 500 kW community-owned biogas plant on the grounds of the Toronto Zoo, turning the Zoo's annual manure output and food waste from GTA-based grocery stores into electricity, heat, fertilizer and cash for the Zoo.

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Final report now available

What worked? What needed improvement? What motivated contestants and what got community members excited? We've captured insights on the ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge in a final report that, in the spirit of open collaboration, we are sharing widely. We hope these findings will be useful to anyone interested in open innovation and crowd sourcing. Meanwhile, they are already informing our thinking about future Challenges. Have an idea for a challenge or interested in using the ClimateSpark platform for your own challenge? We'd love to talk - contact Mary Pickering to start the conversation.

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