The JFK Library Foundation, in partnership with The Earthshot Prize, announces the finalists for the Earthshot Innovation Challenge: Northeast U.S. Edition to ignite Northeast-U.S.-based innovations to address climate change.

Afterlife Ag
Ninety-five percent of food waste goes into landfills and is converted into 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions annually. Afterlife Ag’s circular solution to this challenge reuses organic waste from food generators such as restaurants, grocery stores, and schools and turns them into a proprietary substrate to grow fresh and local mushrooms. Along with their automation technology, they can grow high-yield mushrooms within an indoor environment that takes up less space and energy than traditional farms. The local, sustainable mushrooms grown are then sold back to the same folks that provide them with the food waste. Lastly, the leftover mushroom substrate is provided to parks, gardens, and farms throughout New York to replenish their topsoil and to grow additional produce with the nutrient dense medium.

Afterlife Ag diverts around 20,000 lbs of organic waste every month, working with over 50 schools, restaurants, and food distributors in New York City. Over the past 12 months, they have averted around 0.9 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, and when their new, larger farm opens in 2025 they will increase the greenhouse gas emissions that they avert to over 2.7 million pounds per year. Afterlife Ag’s goal is to build over 100 circular farms across the world to increase their impact to 70,000 tons of CO2 yearly.