Shrooms for the Climate
We Did It!? Staff
Despite following a decade of rapid development in the renewables sector, by 2030, the fossil fuel industry contradictorily continued to obstruct energy autonomy for homeowners, renters, and business owners throughout Canada. Instead of accepting potential redundancy, the behemoth gas companies claimed more stakes in the energy game. As the implementing partner for the federal Greening Homes program, the gas company Enbridge began to consolidate its energy monopoly. It moved into and eventually controlled a large segment of the market for producing and installing energy efficient insulation, doors, and windowpanes. It also continued to oversee the grants needed to pay for these retrofits.
During that era of energy uncertainty, many folks struggled to decarbonize their homes while withstanding the pressures of inflation and renovation costs needed to secure a net zero future. A future that required rapid and calculated action. However, the outsourcing of policy to Enbridge and refusal to provide universal and direct support to households resulted in uneven retrofitting. Radical social and economic transformation happened across nearly all sectors because of repeated bouts of high inflation driven by wave after wave of supply chain disruptions from wars, floods, and heatwaves. But without enough guidance or support from governments to individuals and households buffeted by these changes, there was a lot of uncertainty about how to navigate the volatile world.
Unearthing the underground network of mushroom insulation suppliers in Ontario.
Who would have thought shrooms could be part of the solution to the country’s stalemate with the fossil fuel industry? A few companies had started to develop the technology for mycelium insulation panels in the 2010s and early ‘20s, and a mycelium brick was featured at New York’s famed MOMA already in 2014 in an exhibit on environmental design, but the real breakthrough in Canada came when underground suppliers started to fill the gap left by government inaction. Then, when mushroom insulation entered the market in a serious way, the folks that needed progress the most sat up and took note, and a mycelia-like network of justice-oriented trade emerged.
The suppliers for the booming mushroom insulation market included both industrial and not-for-profit producers. Industrial options served folks that were either ineligible or against purchasing retrofitting insulation using grants overseen by a fossil energy producer. Whereas not-for-profit producers served folks still unable to purchase the mushroom insulation at commercial pricing. The presence of several unnamed not-for-profit actors in a profitable market indicated net zero efforts could potentially depart from the normal impulses of capitalism.
Being unnamed didn’t mean that the farmers, labourers, transporters, and facilitators involved in the network required anonymity in transactions. But remaining under the radar helped distribute limited product to those in most need.
Twenty years later, that discretion is no longer required. The network that made up the mushroom insulation industry thrived in the social and economic gaps of the 20s and 30s. It was an era of community organizing that marked major disruptions in the status quo of trade practices. And to stress the metaphor as far as it can go, it was magic.
KatAstrophy, Drag Performer, Toronto
The Shroom Room was called The Shroom Room long before we partnered with the farmers. Trust me, we never would’ve called it that had we known. It’s so obvious, but I guess that added to the fun. We were a drag bar at night, and a storefront for mushroom insulation on the last Thursday of every other month. Farmers, usually different ones each time, would come in and sell their excess panels, bricks, and drywall to us city-dwellers. Whenever they came, the bartender projected this flier we made on the wall. I remember writing the slogan, it said “We’re ending our toxic relationship with energy, no more HOT or COLD, and we’re taking shrooms. Ask Slaylor Thrift at the bar to hook you up.” We had a lot of disappointed customers at first, but once the regulars caught on, it was kind of funny.
Enna Sharma, Residential Co-op Site Manager, Toronto
The co-op that I managed – still do, actually – didn’t have enough money to update the insulation throughout the building and we had just gotten a grant to upgrade to solar panels and a heat pump, and we didn’t have gas utilities anymore so we couldn’t get the Enbridge grant for energy efficiency retrofits. I had heard about shroom insulation from my friend on the Volunteer Committee with me at StoryPlanet, and immediately got the contact for their Shroom Guy at Deeply Rooted Farmers’ Market. For an order as big as our co-op needed, he said that he’d be able to do pay-what-you can if some folks would be able to help with the production. Everyone was super eager to volunteer, and I think some of them stayed on well after we had the panels. I went out a few weekends and it was honestly so nice. The train ride, then biking to the greenhouse, and sometimes the farmer would give us a few of his other veggies to take back to the city. It never felt transactional.
The “Shroom Guy,” Formerly with Deeply Rooted Farmers’ Market, Toronto
My identity was never a secret, I was a legit shroom dealer. I dealt insulation, I was practically Home Depot. I produced it on such a small scale that I never needed to advertise; word of mouth was more than enough. I usually did pay-what-you-can or some sort of exchange which worked. I have a lot of pottery now though. There were a few other people in the market on such a local level which was cool. I had a few friends who had tried denim insulation but shrooms, man! You can’t beat them. Easy to grow, easy to sell.