Unlocking the Climate-Smart Potential
of Controlled Environment Agriculture
Read about the US CEA Market Accelerator ➝
In partnership with
We advance farm productivity and community resilience.
To us, climate-smart agriculture includes water-wise, locally grown production that is quantifiably lower in life cycle carbon emissions impacts. We’re here to prove it.
We achieve our mission by working in three program areas:
- Data & Research
- Education & Training
- Market Development
Access best practice guidance towards resource efficiency
RII offers Best Practices Guides designed specifically for producers of food, floriculture and medicine, as well as key market actors like governments and utilities. These reports, sponsored by partners like the USDA and the US Department of Energy, are written by RII’s technical team with insights from our subject matter expert Technical Advisory Council faculty members.
Latest News
RII releases Best Practices Guide for integrating Controls and Automation Technologies to Enhance CEA Resource Management
Free, downloadable report provides guidelines to improve the resource efficiency by reducing energy consumption and peak loads, as well as water consumption PORTLAND, Ore. (April 25, 2024) — Resource Innovation Institute (RII), a not-for-profit, public-private partnership advancing climate resilience, announced today the availability of its Controls and Automation Best Practices Guide for Controlled Environment Agriculture…
Read More Leveraging Controls and Automation to Manage CEA Energy Demand
In 2017, utilities and energy experts noticed a spike in electric demand. After 20 or so years of stable low growth, it was first posited that the increase in electric vehicles on U.S. roads and building electrification (e.g. swapping out fossil fuel-burning furnaces for electric heat pumps) was driving this boom. As Wesley Whited, a…
Read More Vertical Harvest’s Road Through USDA’s Loan Guarantee Programs
The vertical farming company received nearly $49 million in USDA loan guarantees. Here, the company shares some of the work that went into the process. The process Vertical Harvest Farms, a hydroponic, vertical farming company with facilities in Wyoming and Maine, went through to get a USDA loan guarantee was a months-long affair full…
Read More RII Responds: USDA 2022 AgCensus Report
As he announced the release of the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture on February 13, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack painted a portrait of a farming industry at risk of stagnating, but with opportunities to innovate. The AgCensus report, released every five years, shares the results of anonymized surveys of the entire U.S. agriculture market.…
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EDUCATION
Improve Your Efficiency With RII’s Best Practices Guides
The horticultural market has changed a lot, technology has advanced, and so have the technical terms used to describe everything. RII’s peer reviewed Best Practices Guides help growers understand the most resource efficient HVAC and lighting technologies for controlled environment agriculture. We are here to show growers how to use efficient.
INTELLIGENCE
Resource Benchmarking, Baselines & Standards
PowerScore, our resource benchmarking platform analyzes facility-level performance on energy, emissions, water and waste. We help compare farm performance against similar peers. Cultivators and their supply chain partners can assess differences between HVAC and lighting technologies designed for controlled environment agriculture operations.
POLICY & UTILITY COORDINATION
Resource Efficient Controlled Environment Agriculture
As an objective, data-driven non-profit organization, RII informs effective policies and incentives that accelerate conservation. RII has provided a trusted, stakeholder-driven voice as leading jurisdictions, including Massachusetts, California, Illinois and Colorado, have established policies and codes addressing the energy and water impacts of controlled environment agriculture. In late 2019, RII formed its Utility Working Group on Controlled Environment Agriculture to enable power suppliers and energy efficiency program administrators to learn from each other and advance best practices on program design, savings methodologies and grower outreach.
