Urban Green founder Noah Verin leads a guided tour of the subterranean farm, followed by a tasting of microgreens, baby leaves and specialty products the small business supplies to some of Sydney’s most well-known and respected restaurants.
Located four levels beneath the heart of Barangaroo, Urban Green Sydney is one of the world's first underground car park farms. Every part of the business is designed to have as little environmental impact as possible, from the growing medium and sustainable packaging used, to plans to power its operations with solar. Urban Green is committed to reaching 100% carbon neutrality by 2026 and is implementing innovative solutions across the business to achieve this.
By 2050, almost five billion people will be living in cities, representing 70% of the global population. Responding to this challenge, humans are developing increasingly creative ways to produce food, with urban farming promising to be a large part of the solution.
Urban Farming Under Sydney’s CBD is part of Sydney Design Week’s urban food program, curated by chef Xinyi Lim (林心仪) who through her venture Megafauna uses food as an artistic tool for social justice, community-building and the exploration of culture and heritage.
‘We want to derive a minimum 50 per cent of our deliveries within a one-kilometre radius of the farm because that's a major advantage ... we are surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of food service restaurants.’
Noah Verin, Urban Green Sydney’s founder, comes from a culinary background with an eight-year career in kitchens, pursuing a degree in environmental studies along the way. Urban Green allows him to create a career combining his two passions: cooking and growing food. Urban Green Sydney grew from humble origins in an apartment in Bondi, then a small studio in a shared workspace precinct in Marrickville, to putting down roots at Barangaroo in early 2020. Verin and his team now supplies products to some of Sydney's most well-known restaurants, hotels and cafes.
Xinyi Lim’s (林心仪) exploration of the Australian food industry has seen her cooking in several notable kitchens in Sydney Cafe Freda’s in Darlinghurst (where she was opening head chef) and three-hatted restaurant Firedoor in Surry Hills (NSW Restaurant of the Year 2023) while maintaining her commitment to social causes through work with enterprises such as Welcome Merchant, Two Good Co and OzHarvest. She is currently a food consultant, food stylist and freelance chef, and continues to write, philosophise and converse about all things food and culture.
‘Urban Green, a subterranean vertical farm located below Sydney’s CBD is adopting small scale processes to achieve 100% sustainability in its business, while growing ingredients for some of Sydney’s finest restaurants.’
