Sustainable Cannabis Initiatives we're excited about

Earlier this month, California officials released its first round of funding to support sustainable cannabis cultivation, awarding more than $1.7 million in total to eligible nonprofits, entities, and tribes. The program, spearheaded by California’s Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, will dole out an aggregate $6 million through 2023 to help growers obtain licenses and increase sustainability in their practice—including land restoration and water conservation projects.

This news out of the Golden State speaks to a larger trend in the cannabis space, asking how do we grow and consume cannabis, without hurting the earth? 

For a lot of us in this field, that future isn’t just a pipedream, it’s the goal post. Beyond plastic litter caused by packaging and cartridges, just growing cannabis can be a resource-intensive process with negative impact on local environments and the climate. Water, fertilizers, the trucking to get it to you, it’s all fairly extractive if done prioritizing profit over planet. However, the good news is that as both laws and stigmas around cannabis become more lax, more public and private entities are stepping up to create a more sustainable future for consumers, cultivators, and the planet we all share. 

Let’s take a look at a few sustainable cannabis initiatives we’re excited about.

Weed Like Change 

Weed Like Change has an active Instagram campaign supporting their initiative.

“We believe it feels better to consume cannabis that is grown in ways that honor our place in the web of life.”

Weed Like Change (WLC) is a coalition of Sun+Earth certified partners including 22 farms, three manufacturers, and 34 dispensaries in California and Oregon. The campaign’s mission is simple: support organic, regenerative cannabis farmers who are threatened by large-scale industry and a lack of protective legislation. The core belief is also similarly forward: mindfully-grown weed is not only better for you, it’s better for all of us.

Through the site, a user can find partnering brands and sign a pledge to support “cannabis grown under the sun, in the soil of Mother Earth, without chemicals by fairly paid farmers.” By joining forces, WLC is honing its education and advocacy work for a more inclusive, sustainable tomorrow.

Sun+Earth—a cannabis certifier that scores based on organic, regenerative, and social equity practices—also received $395,643 in 2022 from the California cannabis grants for land and water conservation efforts. 

cannachange

Cannachange launched their recycling program app in February 2022.

Like many other agricultural and retail industries, cannabis produces a lot of garbage. Over 150 million tons of waste annually, in fact. That means a lot of organic and inorganic stuff going into our soils, waters, and bodies. The mobile app cannachange is taking the problem on directly by incentivizing consumers to think about packaging waste. 

The company’s recycling program partners with dispensaries around the U.S. to dole out points for each recyclable packaging item returned and bag reused. Participating dispensaries will accept glass jars, concentrate containers, and pre-roll tubes, and other cannabis packaging made of glass, paper, plastic, aluminum, or cardboard. The only exception is vape cartridges and pens, as these cannot be recycled due to state regulations. 

Customers who’ve downloaded the app can aggregate points by bringing back their containers and jars. Points can then be redeemed for $5 discounts by a budtender at the time of sale. It’s a fun, gameified way to help consumers remember to make a small change that can have a big impact.

Resinate

Resinate recycles plastic containers dispensary customers return to the retailer.

Spurred to action by a documentary on plastic in the ocean and knowledge of America’s crumbling recycling infrastructure, brothers Brandon and Garrett Schwartz started Resinate to tackle the mounting waste crisis. They partner with local businesses to provide recycling solutions with help from the “Energy Pod,” a receptacle specially designed to collect plastics that would have otherwise gone into landfills. It wasn’t long after Resinate’s inception that the brothers saw the need for their pods in the weed industry.

Garrett, a cannabis patient since 2014 or so, personally experienced the piles of waste generated by purchasing flower or other medicinals. “I had a dresser drawer just packed full of little containers that I was going to figure out what to do with at some point,” he told Cannabis Business Times.

Dispensary customers, like those who shop at Hana locations in Arizona, can drop exit bags, acrylic containers, and all manner of plastics in an Energy Pod and earn a chance to win discounts on purchases. But wait, as they say, there’s more! Instead of heading to the landfill to sit for millennia, materials are made into new wholesale products made of 100% recycled plastic. In this way, the Schwartz brothers are paving a way for a circular economy in cannabis that offers the opportunity for indefinite reuse and reinvention.