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RII Hosts Sustainability Roundtable at Virtual MJBizConNEXT

Dialogue Ranged from Energy to Water to Waste

On Wed., July 1, Executive Director Derek Smith joined MJBiz’s John Schroyer in leading an open dialogue on “What sustainability practices are you implementing at your company” as part of MJBiz’s mid-year “NEXT” conference. The conversation began with questions about the definition of sustainability. Derek talked about RII’s use of the more tangible and quantifiable term resource efficiency. Participants weighed in on a range of topics, including packaging waste. Derek emphasized that the industry has the opportunity to leverage the Cannabis PowerScore to demonstrate via data how much waste is being generated by regulations requiring fossil fuel-based packaging and disposal of plant waste into landfills.

PowerScore has been benchmarking and reporting water key performance indicators and has been peer-reviewed by stakeholders. Our next goal is to improve our waste reporting to meet interest and get stakeholder feedback. Clearly there’s interest, and the industry needs to engage to change laws to ensure a sustainable future for cannabis!

MJBizConNEXT is intended to preview the near-future subjects relevant to the unfolding marketplace. The conference is usually held in New Orleans, and this year was delivered in a virtual format. For the third year in a row, NEXT has featured the topic of sustainability and put a spotlight on RII. Our gratitude goes out to MJBiz for supporting a vision of a sustainable industry.