StartUp HERE Toronto

Bringing together key stakeholders from Toronto's innovation community, Chris led the development of the StartUp HERE Toronto brand and web platform as way to better tell the story of Toronto's innovation community.

Managed by an editorial board comprised of representatives of local technology companies and business support organizations, such as MaRS and the DMZ at Ryerson University, the StartUp HERE Toronto web platform aggregates and curates all of the news and events from Toronto's innovation community. In addition, the web platform provides a directory of business support resources, including incubators, accelerators and coworking spaces that are available for entrepreneurs.

Beyond aggregating resources, StartUp HERE Toronto also produces its own unique content focusing on profiling entrepreneurs from Toronto's innovation community, while having them share their story on why Toronto is a great place to build a company.

Food Starter

Toronto's food processing sector is the city's largest manufacturing sector and the second largest food hub in North America. However, the challenges facing early stage food companies face are many - from the high capital cost of food grade production space and manufacturing equipment, to the regulatory requirements to sell to large markets.

To address this Chris led a team to create a food production incubator called Food Starter. Food Starter is Ontario's first food incubator focused on baking, hot and cold fill and ethnic food products. Providing a 20,000 sq. ft. production facility, Food Starter features shared manufacturing equipment and space, training and mentorship focused on helping early stage food companies bring products to market.

Chris' role in the project included securing funding, managing the construction of the facility, developing a not-for-profit and board of directors, hiring staff and overseeing the launch of the facility and its programming.

Energy Leaders Consortium

Chris initiated the development of the Partners in Project Green Energy Leaders Consortium - a group of businesses from around Toronto Pearson with a commitment to working together to reduce their energy consumption.

Levering funding from various funding partners, Chris worked with his team and a consultant to develop the Energy Leaders Consortium.  The program provided a work plan for participating companies to identify, target and reduce their energy consumption.  Leveraging ongoing mentoring, regular training sessions and the use of various energy monitoring technologies, participants developed their reduction plans and worked with each other to drive savings in their respective businesses.

The Energy Leaders Consortium included the following companies:

• Bayer
• Broan-NuTone
• Cott Beverages
• CKF
• Greater Toronto Airports Authority
• Husky Injection Molding
• Janes Family Foods
• Lincoln Electric
• Orbis
• Magellan Aerospace
• Pratt and Whitney
• Weston Bakeries

In just its first year, the participating companies were able to collectively reduce energy consumption by 11.1 eGWh for a total savings of 1.15 million dollars.

Pearson Eco-Business Zone Materials Exchange Program

As a result of the Partners in Project Green Strategy, Chris led the development of the Pearson Eco-Business Zone Materials Exchange Program.  The goal of the program was to help companies identify ways to turn their waste into feedstock for other companies. Overall, the initiative aimed to help drive waste reduction, while facilitating business development and supply chain innovations.

The development of the materials exchange included completing a review of existing materials exchanges globally to better understand the economic and policy drivers that made exchanges successful, while identifying the required tools, marketing and resources that help exchanges grow.  With the relevant information in hand, a business model was developed and funding partners secured to implement the materials exchange program.

The Pearson Eco-Business Zone Materials Exchange Program continues to operate and assists companies around Toronto Pearson International Airport in reducing their waste costs and identifying new sources of feedstocks.

To learn more about the exchange or utilize it for your company, visit http://www.partnersinprojectgreen.com/programs/waste-management/materials-exchange-program.

To view the feasibility study visit here.

Partners in Project Green - Eco-Efficiency Program

Working with his team at TRCA, Chris developed the Partners in Project Green Eco-Efficiency Program - a program aimed at identifying resource and cost reduction opportunities for business around Toronto Pearson.

Supported by the local distribution companies servicing the airport area (Toronto Hydro, Enersource Hydro and Brampton Hydro One), along with Enbridge Gas, the Eco-Efficiency Program provided companies with a no-cost high-level audit of their facilities to identify energy, waste and water reduction opportunities.

Chris oversaw the management of consultants and staff hired to provide the high-level audits and their implementation, while also marketing the program to perspective companies.  The program continues to operate around Toronto Pearson and can be found here - http://www.partnersinprojectgreen.com/programs/energy-performance/eco-efficiency-program.