Category: Blog

Climate Resources Group was a proud signatory to the comments below to the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission Energy and Environment Working Group today. *** Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission101 Federal Street, 13th floorBoston, MA 02110 Submitted via email: CannabisCommission@State.MA.US September 14, 2018 Dear Cannabis Control Commission, Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment to the Energy and Environment Working Group (EEWG). On September 11, 2018, Resource Innovation Institute, in partnership with Climate Resources Group, convened a Cannabis Energy Roundtable with stakeholders in the cannabis industry and those who provide services to them. This work is funded by a Massachusetts-based foundation, E4TheFuture. The discussion among cannabis operators, construction professionals, technology manufacturers, utilities and energy policy experts yielded mutually agreeable issues of interest for the EEWG’s consideration, described below. Over the course…

In its final day of deliberations after a wide-ranging nearly 6-month regulation-development process, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) just raised the bar on cannabis cultivation in the state. Steven Hoffman, Chairman of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission In short, the Commission agreed to include all of the recommendations of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. If these recommendations are included in final regulations due to be filed by March 15, Massachusetts will arguably have the greenest cannabis industry in the country. What are these regs, and why should we care? A lighting power density (LPD) standard of no more than 36 W per square foot of canopy for a cultivation facility with over 5,000 ft² of canopy. For smaller facilities, the commission establishes a LPD standard…

As I sat in a jam-packed conference room at last week’s NESEA BuildingEnergy Boston conference to learn about the energy consumption profile by commercial-scale cannabis production (a.k.a. the “Cannabis Cultivation Conundrum”), I was struck by three major themes. First, cannabis cultivation can be enormously energy intensive, and legal demand for marijuana in our region will very likely be driving up energy and water use. Every state in New England now permits marijuana consumption for medicinal purposes, and voters in both Massachusetts and Maine recently passed ballot referendums legalizing recreational use as well. Medicinal growers can produce in all states save Connecticut, and large-scale commercial growers are already preparing to set up shop across the region, particularly in Massachusetts where legal recreational use is imminent, pending regulatory fixes by legislators. At…