Gov. Pritzker Cuts Ribbon on New Green Era Campus in Chicago
Supported by state grant, the Green Era Campus transformed a former brownfield into community hub focused on sustainability
April 25, 2025
CHICAGO- Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined local officials, representatives from Argonne National Laboratory, Green Era Sustainability, and Urban Growers Collective to celebrate the fully-operational Green Era Campus on the South Side of Chicago in Auburn-Gresham. The ribbon-cutting highlighted Green Era Campus’ most exciting new addition: the Midwest’s first self-sustainable anaerobic digester, which will divert millions of pounds of landfill food waste to produce clean energy and nutrient-rich compost.
“This project, years in the making, is a testament to the positive change that we can produce with local, state, and federal partnerships,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “I am grateful for the work that Urban Growers Collective and Green Era have done to provide access to fresh food, minimize food waste, and produce renewable energy on the South Side of Chicago. With this campus’ focus on serving local communities with fresh food, urban farming opportunities, education, and workforce development, we’re investing in the sustainability leaders of tomorrow.”
Green Era Campus is located in a former brownfield vacant lot in the Greater Auburn Gresham neighborhood of Chicago, and was supported by the State of Illinois with a $3 million Rebuild Illinois infrastructure grant. The multi-year project supported hundreds of construction jobs, and the campus has created 15 full-time jobs so far, with further workforce expansions planned. More than a third of these new full-time positions will be accessible to justice-impacted individuals and those without a bachelor’s degree.
Closing out Earth Week, the event brought together stakeholders across the clean energy and sustainability sectors to celebrate the anaerobic digester’s accomplishments so far, including:
- 40,000 tons of food waste diverted from landfills to-date, mitigating tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases
- 1 million pounds of food waste recycledinto renewable energy in partnership with Mariano’s
- 65,000 MMBtus of carbon-negative renewable natural gas produced—enough to power thousands of single-family homes
The Green Era Campus earned the 2024 Illinois Clean Energy Champion Award for leadership in clean energy innovation and job creation. Additionally, in June of 2024, Green Era Campus signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Argonne National Laboratory to collaborate on sustainability, renewable energy, and food equity research.
Green Era Campus will also collaborate with Simeon Career Academy to build sustainability career pathways through a new STEM & Workforce Training Hub, and the campus will house an indoor Community Education Center (CEC), including a teaching kitchen, classrooms, and operational space.
“At Green Era, we’ve built more than a facility - we’ve built a model for what a truly sustainable future can look like. By turning inedible food waste into renewable energy and nutrient-rich fertilizer, we’re supporting everything from local food production to job creation and economic development. It’s a closed-loop system that benefits both people and the planet, and we’re proud to show that environmental impact and a sustainable business model can go hand in hand. We invite businesses to be part of this solution - partner with us to recycle your food waste and turn today’s challenges into tomorrow’s opportunities,” said Jason Feldman, CEO, Green Era.
“This project shows how public-private partnerships and community leadership can come together to create sustainable solutions that benefit everyone,” said Erika Allen, Co-Founder of Green Era and President of Urban Growers Collective.
Advancements in agriculture and clean energy technology are a key component of Illinois’ economic development strategy—which prioritizes investments in high growth potential industry clusters, including agriculture, technology, manufacturing, life sciences, and more. Illinois’ strategy seeks to boost growth in the agriculture sector by facilitating technology adoption, encouraging innovation, and boosting connections with global markets. Recent accomplishments across the agriculture and clean energy sectors include TCCI’s Clean Energy Innovation Hub, Innovafeed’s new North American Insect Innovation Center in Decatur, and Avina Clean Hydrogen’s $820 million investment for a Sustainable Aviation Fuel production facility in Southwest Illinois.
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