By Amanda Wilson for Douglas Magazine, January 11, 2022
A business incubator program established by ecopreneur Jill Doucette and the Synergy Foundation has announced it will expand this year to include startups from across B.C.
Developed three years ago to nurture Victoria and Vancouver Island-based entrepreneurs and grow the circular economy, Project Zero has seen 29 ventures complete the program, including 16 female and 15 youth entrepreneurs. These businesses are projected to create over 80 new green jobs between 2020 and 2022.
Examples of successful graduates include Share Wares, a citywide borrowing platform to supply, sanitize, and track reusable packaging for Vancouver businesses, Carbon Wise, offering holistic consulting services to residential architects and builders to reduce both operational and embodied carbon emissions, and BinBreeze, a compost bin deodorizer that eliminates fruit flies and odour (also a 2021 Douglas 10 to Watch award winner).
“The Project Zero team was fantastic in helping me shape my business idea and make it a reality,” says Elizabeth Baudinaud, Founder of Carbon Wise. “The mentorship, guidance, and support I received over the past eight months were incredibly helpful to overcome the many challenges I faced as a young entrepreneur.”
