How to make cannabis cultivation greener
What could be more natural than growing cannabis? Unfortunately, even with artisanal processes like those used by Origine Nature, cannabis plants generate waste. To be part of the solution, we’ve decided to get our hands dirty and develop better practices to improve the industry’s sustainability. Here’s how far we’ve come.
When meeting with managers of organizations in Quebec, Jean-Michel Archambault-Cyr invites them to take a look at their garbage cans. An unusual way to break the ice? Actually, for the project manager at Synergie économique Laurentides and his team, a company’s waste holds great value. “Waste is often the gateway to the implementation of broader circular economy initiatives,” he says.
By creating symbiotic relationships between various institutions, businesses and communities, Synergie économique Laurentides contributes to establishing a circular and local economy. In simpler terms, when they exchange residual materials, water, energy and resources (material, human or technical), businesses improve their environmental performance while achieving greater competitiveness.
Working together for the environment
In 2021, Origine Nature accepted Synergie économique Laurentides’ invitation to join one of the organization’s projects. Like other players in the industry, Origine Nature opened its doors to the organization to find innovative solutions for the management of residual waste from cannabis cultivation.
Why join forces with other businesses from the industry in this experience? According to Jean-Michel Archambault-Cyr, businesses from the same sector have a lot to gain from partnering in the search for promising solutions by not only sharing knowledge but also the burden of R & D efforts. “While the reality of production sometimes differs from one business to the other, they tend to face similar issues.”
Many avenues for plant residue management
The strict regulation was a major challenge for the project’s teams. After all, a business cannot simply dispose of cannabis residues as it pleases. “This industry is quite young and has not yet reached full maturity, which means everything is evolving rapidly.” Nevertheless, auditing the participating cannabis producers’ processes has helped identify an impressive number of potential solutions.
“We have identified about thirty potential solutions for cannabis plants and about fifteen for organic substrates,” says the project’s manager. That is to say that businesses and institutions would have commercial interests in reusing residues from cannabis cultivation—stems, leaves or substrates—to give them a second life and turn this waste into raw materials that meet their own needs.
This type of business matching would reduce the extraction of raw materials by businesses that reuse and help the cannabis industry avoid further increasing the amount of waste in landfills.
A win-win situation
We have reached the very limits of a linear economic model where resources are extracted, consumed and thrown away, says Jean-Michel Archambault-Cyr. “A circular economy reduces the extraction of raw materials, our environmental footprint, greenhouse gas emissions and stimulates economic activity.”
Origine Nature and the other participating cannabis producers have now entered a crucial stage in this adventure: They must select, among the identified potential solutions, the most promising avenues and study their feasibility in the field. To be continued!
