Community Interest Company Policy
Community Purpose
Clean Valley CIC is dedicated to inventing, developing and promoting innovations that safeguard our oceans. As a B corporation and a CIC we are audited on our ability to do so with the consent of the community and through the fiscal responsibility of being a for-profit organization on the international stage.
Community Interest Plan
We are focusing on the aquaculture industry, an industry resolving the food crisis facing the world, and have chosen this industry as our first case for providing sustainable solutions revolving around algae. We utilize algae for its regenerative economic models and its ability to create donut economies. From our conversations with members of this community and the community at large there is hope for onshore aquaculture to be the sustainable protein producer and we’ll explain further on the challenge and opportunity within such an industry. These conversations have highlighted the need for more sustainable solutions within their supply chain and afterwards. Therefore, we are bringing three sustainable solutions, Poseidon’s Biofilter, a containerized Hatchery, and the creation of a Green Supply Chain.
Clean Valley Bio-filtration Technologies CIC will hire local community members for the manufacturing of the biofilters and hatchery. Additionally, we’ll source our materials locally. We’re committed to partnering with small “mom-and-pop” aquaculture facilities that may not have the same capital level as larger firms. The partnering and co-development of our biofilters and hatcheries with local community members gives the industry the insight of how sustainable aquaculture is possible without the introduction of microplastics, harsh chemicals, or proliferation of deleterious material within our oceans. Clean Valley is dedicated to long-term research in discovering the “Achilles heel” of plastic and reducing the amount of plastic going into our ocean. The Green Supply Chain aforementioned will become a case study of how waste streams can be valorized into co-products through the adoption of sustainable innovation such as the Biofilter.
Moreover, Clean Valley will be dedicated to a true-Blue Ocean approach by not discouraging competitors as this crisis is far beyond numbers on a page. As a CIC we will also update our Community Interest Plan annually as well as the list of Charities, NPOs, and Academic partners to align with the top 100 Canadian NPO organizations listed by the CRA.
I Nicholas LaValle- hereby declare that I shall not carry on activities with a political purpose as a director of Clean Valley Bio-filtration Technologies in accordance with the requirements of a Community Interest Company.
I Nicholas LaValle- hereby declare that I shall exercise the powers and perform the functions of director of Clean Valley Bio-filtration Technologies in accordance with the community purpose set out in its memorandum of association and designation documents, as required by Section 12 of the Community Interest Companies Act
Problem Statement
By 2050, according to UN projections, the world's population is estimated to reach approximately 10 billion. With this population growth we will see increased global food demand. As one of the most sustainable methods of protein production, the onshore aquaculture industry is poised to meet this increase in demand. However, the industry has a significant problem with maintenance costs, which are 40% higher compared to offshore aquaculture, as water quality treatment is a major expense for onshore facilities. This pain point is constantly being validated through customer conversations and global aquaculture wastewater filtration was estimated to cost approximately $12.2 billion by Lux research’s report - Blue revolution, onshore aquaculture’s wastewater remediation. This project addresses the problem Nova Scotia’s onshore oyster industry is facing with lack of spat. There is a lack of local oyster spat available due to a local parasite known as MSX that has devastated spat availability.
Sustainability Issues
Poseidon’s Biofilter is aimed to remove primary pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus from aquaculture wastewater. This improves water quality in a sustainable fashion, and prevents eutrophication to occur in external water sources. Untreated wastewater can result in an accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorus which in turn cause excessive plant and algal growth (i.e. HABs - harmful algae blooms). Algae blooms prevent light from saturating the water column, and cause a cascade of negative consequences including die-offs of littoral plants and increased pH levels. When algae blooms die off, dissolved oxygen in the surface water creates an anoxic ‘dead zone’ which is harmful to surrounding aquatic organisms. HABs and eutrophication also create an environment where toxic cyanobacteria thrive and outcompete other microorganisms, causing a myriad of issues such as poor water quality, animal poisonings, and increased off-flavour compounds (e.g. geosmin and methylisoborneal).
Technology Solution
Our solution to the high maintenance costs, and rampant use of chemical filtration in the onshore aquaculture industry is our proprietary Poseidon biofilter. Our biofilter uses the natural filtration properties of both bivalves and algae to provide onshore systems with low cost, sustainable water remediation. Already undergoing multiple tests of varying sizes and is now ready for full scale operation. Every six to eight months the filtration pods containing the live filtration medium will need replacement. The old pod will contain collected coproducts from the bivalves and algae, this co-product is a valuable input to our industries. As mentioned above Nova Scotia and by extension any oyster facility on the east coast is currently seeing massive oyster die offs due to the MSX parasite. Preliminary research shows that the Poseidon's Biofilter may be an effective solution to the MSX problem. We are currently testing the efficacy of our filter against the MSX parasite.
Clean Valley Biofiltration Technologies CIC's
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Comprehensive Designer and CEO
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Nicholas H. LaValle