10048257GrowCup - making indoor farming sustainableClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UK**Controlled Environment Farming (CEA)** In order to meet global and local climate targets many industries need to become more efficient and sustainable. CEA (also called vertical farming) is the practice of growing crops indoors where traditional soil is replaced with alternative substrates. This practice has advantages, such as growing food in less space, reliable year-round production, no chemicals/pesticides, water savings of up to 90%, and brings food production close to consumers - saving on extremely high global food transport miles. **The problem** However currently, non-reusable growing substrates are used to grow plants in these indoor farms. These substrates are made of materials such as rock wool, a 'candy-floss' like sponge made from rock, plastic and some organic compounds. Once the plants are harvested these substrates are thrown away and are non-reusable or recyclable, making these growing practices less environmentally friendly. With every plant harvested a cube of substrate is thrown away. If you imagine a farm with 500,000 plants, the waste is in the tons. In addition to this, the energy, transportation emissions, labour and disposal processes that go into substrates are not net environmentally friendly. Some organic alternatives such as bark and coconut husk are available, however they are expensive, unreliable and allow contaminants to grow. These drawbacks, together with the sheer quantity of waste, make this a global problem. **Our solution** GyroPlant is addressing this key inefficiency in CEA to deal with the growing issue of wasteful single-use substrate waste. We saw this as a rather large issue, similar to the issue of disposable coffee cups which has recently undergone public scrutiny. We have been researching the market and proving the concept over the past year with assistance from Innovate UK and KTN as a Young Innovator award holder. The result was our GyroPlant technology, which replaces substrates and addresses the issue of single-use substrate waste in agriculture. Like reusable flasks for coffee, our product will have the same impact in the CEA context. Our circular economy-based system and technology is compatible with most CEA setups. Our "GrowCup" technology has two modes; one for cleaning and one for growing. The 'reuseable approach' is our central value and adheres to the circular economy design principle. Our project seeks to understand how our idea relates to people by deploying user-centric design methodologies and environmental impact assessment. This will significantly improve our design for future models and products.