Greenbelt Fund is a branch of the Greenbelt Foundation, a non-for profit organization put in place and funded by the Ontario government to protect agricultural land and support the Local Food Economy in Ontario. Greenbelt Fund supports both local food businesses and community-food initiatives, like the Ontario Fresh platform. The OntarioFresh platform is an online tool that is assisting approximately 2700 users to achieve great visibility, improve market access, shorten their supply chain, bridge the urban rural divide by ridesharing their local food and increase the amount of local food grown and consumed locally. An extensive consultation process and some key findings on Ontariofresh V2.0 will be presented focusing specifically on three needs for improvement, namely: additional streamlining, marketing and the addition of a distribution route map tool. Eco-Ethonomics partners with the Greenbelt Fund, among other projects, in the planned extension of the OntarioFresh Platform with a highly innovative tool for Inter-regional Trade Optimization of local food distribution and logistics. This “RideShare for Local Food” concept represents a technological innovation, aimed at democratizing the local food economy and hence at protecting the agricultural land, led by Greenbelt Fund, in collaboration with the government and many cross-sector partners.

The initiative brings together a social micro enterprise, an environmental NGO and the local government to produce protective materials from recycled materials (scraps of leather, textile and tire factories) with minimum automation as an occupational safety and health scheme for marginalised waste pre-collectors in the city of Addis Ababa. The initiative has trained 30 unemployed and disabled youth in the trade to ensure bulk production of initially 750 pieces of gloves, overalls and protective shoes with a prospective market of supplying 5000 waste pre-collectors in the city. The initiative was also set up for the youth to partly own shares in the enterprise.

CERES is a 4-hectare community and visitor centre in Melbourne, Australia, created by local people on a rehabilitated landfill site. At CERES, people come together to share ideas about living well together, and directly participate in sustainably meeting their social and material needs. Through social enterprises, education and training, employment and community engagement, CERES provides the means by which people can build awareness of current local and global issues, and join in the movement for economic, social and environmental sustainability. CERES has partnered with Moreland City Council since 1982. It s a tenant on Council land, receives funding for capital improvements, and is subject to local regulations. CERES has become one of the largest employers in the municipality, and is an active enabler of social, environmental and economic change. While our partnership is collaborative and mutually beneficial, differences in organisational purpose and culture require both organisations to adapt and evolve.