Blog

Allocating Cannabis Taxes to Communities Impacted by the War on Drugs As conversations about defunding police departments mount across the country, RII is focusing on our collective opportunity to influence the reallocation of cannabis taxes. In Portland, Oregon, 45% of cannabis taxes go to the police, and while a portion is to be provided to…

DesignLights Consortium Releases Draft Horticultural Lighting Technical Requirements v2.0 RII invites you to provide feedback on the recently released first draft of the DLC Horticultural Lighting Technical Requirements V2.0. V2.0 continues the transition from using traditional lighting metrics to using horticultural-specific metrics that better represent horticultural lighting performance, and should increase the quantity and quality…

New PowerScore Service Launched for Massachusetts Cultivators As of July 1, Massachusetts cannabis cultivators can use a unique portal of RII’s Cannabis PowerScore to easily report, benchmark, and improve performance of their greenhouses and indoor facilities. The upgrades were funded by Massachusetts Dept. of Energy Resources in coordination with the Cannabis Control Commission’s specification of…

Tighten your belt to ensure survival and reduce operating costs today and beyond   The president of an RII member company that manufactures cultivation HVAC equipment recently let us know that during the downtime presented by coronavirus, they have taken the opportunity to upgrade to highly efficient LED solutions for their business’ offices. An especially…

Advice for State and Federal Governments Looking to Incorporate Energy Guidelines in Cultivation Licensing Peer-reviewed Guidance for State and Federal Lawmakers   There are a number of opportunities for state and federal agencies, and, to a certain extent, utilities, to influence the cannabis industry with effective targeted policies. These suggestions are organized by time frame:…

Get Involved and Offer Input for California Title 24 Revisions Last month we wrote about how California’s proposed regulations aimed at saving energy and water while maintaining crop quality and production volume for crops grown in non-stacked and stacked indoor farms could affect essentially all cannabis cultivators. As noted before, the California Statewide Utility Codes…

California Writing Energy Codes that May Affect Cannabis Cultivation and All “Controlled Environment Horticulture” How your business can get involved   As part of its 2022 code cycle, the California Energy Commission is reviewing proposals aimed at saving energy and water while maintaining crop quality and production volume for crops grown in non-stacked and stacked…

RII’s HVAC Best Practices Guide Demystifies Approaches to Efficient HVAC for Cannabis Get Help with Controlled Environment Agriculture Dehumidification System Selection It can be difficult for growers and the design and construction professionals supporting them to navigate how to build and operate efficient and effective heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. You may not…

RII’s LED Lighting Best Practices Guide Illuminates the Way to Lower-Energy Grows   It can be difficult for growers and the design and construction professionals supporting them to navigate how to build and operate efficient and effective lighting systems for cultivation applications. You and your project team may be unsure where to turn for trustworthy…

It’s not uncommon to hear indoor cannabis cultivators talk about crop output and throw out phrases such as “pounds per light” and “grams per watt.” But are those the best metrics by which to judge cultivation performance and, specifically, optimization of energy inputs? RII believes there are better, more comprehensive measurements that reflect the actual…

RII’s Best Practices Guides Help Cultivators and Construction Partners Communicate More Effectively on Technical Terms and Concepts   Modern horticulture continues to change rapidly because of technological advances. And cultivators of all kinds — and especially those who grow cannabis — are faced with an ever-growing list of technical terms and acronyms describing the operating…

From Cannabis to Cucumbers: Applying Early Policy & Program Learnings to Inform the Future of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) By Derek Smith, Executive Director, Resource Innovation Institute   As weather patterns disrupt outdoor crop cycles in our rapidly climate-constrained world, a quiet agricultural revolution is taking place in warehouses and greenhouses. With electric lighting, HVAC,…