GOLETA, Calif.—July 19, 2018—PRESS RELEASE—As California cities and towns ready their application processes and regulations for the state’s recreational marijuana cultivation licenses, Resource Innovation Institute (RII) applauds the City of Goleta for including a requirement for an energy assessment in its Cannabis Land Use Ordinance. Located in Santa Barbara County, the City of Goleta will now allow for indoor cultivation of cannabis for up to 5,000 square feet of canopy per building. As California jurisdictions grapple with the energy implications around this new industry coming online, measuring energy use through an industry assessment such as RII’s Cannabis PowerScore will help the sector quantify use and how to be more sustainable. Effective Aug. 17, 2018, the City’s Cannabis Land Use Ordinance (18-257) requires participation in the Cannabis PowerScore and engagement with utility efficiency programs.
“As Southern California prepares to be the largest cannabis market in the world, cities in the region are facing unprecedented challenges around whether to authorize cultivation, how to regulate new businesses and how to address concerns of constituents. Cities like Goleta are setting important precedent for indoor cultivation energy regulations,” said Derek Smith, executive director, Resource Innovation Institute.
A majority of the municipalities in California have not authorized commercial cannabis cultivation, despite a robust regulatory framework at the state level. The Resource Innovation Institute is committed to advancing resource efficiency to fuel the cannabis economy in California, and in every market where cannabis is legal. Hundreds of cultivation facilities across the United States have already participated in RII’s Cannabis PowerScore survey, which benchmarks and aggregates power consumption data across a range of grow environments, climate zones and geographies to determine the most resource efficient approaches to cannabis cultivation.
Measuring is key in the effort to reduce cannabis energy impacts, and RII encourages cultivators to see where they stand by participating in the Cannabis PowerScore at https://www.cannabispowerscore.org/. Drawing from the Cannabis PowerScore aggregate and anonymized data, RII will co-author the regulated cannabis industry’s first-ever energy report in Fall 2018.
