Blog

RII’s Executive Director Joins Other Subject Matter Experts in Center of Excellence for Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education & Regulation (CPEAR)RII Executive Director Derek Smith was recently named to the Center of Excellence for the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education & Regulation (CPEAR). CPEAR works to advance comprehensive policy solutions for cannabis legalization and regulation.…

Quantifying Emissions Impacts of Cannabis and Commercial Agriculture with PowerScoreResource Innovation Institute (RII), a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance resource efficiency to cultivate a better agricultural future, provides best practices guidance on resource efficient cultivation technologies and techniques via peer-reviewed reports and curated events. RII’s resource benchmarking platform, PowerScore, enables cultivators to gain…

RII Demonstrates New “Harvesting Savings” Workshops In February, RII delivered a workshop series for the Lansing Board of Water and Light (LBWL), an electricity and water utility serving communities in Lansing, Michigan. LBWL’s Energy Waste Reduction (EWR) programs help customers operating cannabis production facilities receive technical assistance and financial incentives for efficient equipment. LBWL brought…

RII Celebrates Black History Month To honor Black History Month, the Interstate Renewable Energy Coalition (IREC) recently shared stories about Black leaders in the environmental sustainability landscape, highlighted organizations bringing about environmental justice and representation of people of color in the clean energy industry, and provided information about the progress needed to combat environmental racism.…

RII Technical Advisory Council Demonstrates How Data-Driven Collaboration Can Improve Policies and Practices The culmination of the nearly year-long efforts by RII’s Water Working Group to study water usage in the cannabis industry will take place March 10 during a New Frontier Data hosted industry briefing webinar. The webinar will focus on the policy and…

In the January 2021 issue of Greenhouse Grower magazine, Resource Innovation Institute Executive Director Derek Smith offered advice for business owners and facility staff navigating regulations and energy codes while achieving resource-efficient, productive, and profitable operations. "The future may be uncertain, but it is crucial that all crops grown in greenhouses are able to be…

Since 2017, PowerScore has served cultivators with facility performance benchmarks providing key performance indicators (KPIs)  for energy, water, and waste efficiency and productivity for outdoor, greenhouse, and indoor cannabis operations using one year of self-reported resource consumption and production data entered into the PowerScore Grow survey.  In 2020, RII deployed PowerScore Comply for Massachusetts cultivators…

On December 15, 2020, the United Nations General Assembly designated 2021 the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV), an awareness campaign that seeks to highlight the important role of fruits and vegetables in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals*. Fruit and vegetables are considered edible parts of plants (e.g., seedbearing structures, flowers, buds, leaves,…

Black voices share their narratives about discrimination, and their advocacy to advance an equitable agricultural future The Acres of Ancestry Initiative Black Agrarian Fund, a nonprofit regenerating custodial landownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the Southern US, recently hosted a webinar on the United States Senate Bill S.4929, the Justice for Black…

Authors discussed policy recommendations and contrast recent findings with oft-cited statistics On December 1, RII, New Frontier Data, and the Berkeley Cannabis Research Center offered a sneak peek of the Cannabis Water Report at the MJBizCon’s 2020 Associations Day. The presentation provided essential information for anyone focused on cannabis cultivation water use, including cultivators, industry…

Cannabis regulators from across the United States have formed a non-partisan organization, the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA), to better share institutional knowledge and regulatory best practices. Cannabis regulators from 19 states have joined CANNRA, which is being created in order to assist federal, state, and local jurisdictions that have approved or are weighing legalization of…

In the November issue of Cannabis Business Times, RII’s Technical Director Gretchen Schimelpfenig shared the benefits of commissioning for cannabis production facilities in A Shipbuilding Concept that Can Save You Money. She shared the results of a 2018 study showing that existing industrial buildings can achieve energy savings between 3% and 12% when systems are…