PORTLAND, Ore. — Resource Innovation Institute (RII) has assembled a senior level of its Technical Advisory Council to support its USDA-funded project titled Data-driven Market Transformation for Efficient, Sustainable Controlled Environment Agriculture. The new Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Leadership Committee, composed of a range of subject matter experts in CEA, will advise the development of a Market Characterization Report that will analyze the emerging “controlled environment” horticultural supply chain to determine opportunities to increase energy and water efficiency in cultivation.

“Market characterization is a critical first step in a coordinated effort to transform an economic sector toward efficient production,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute. “This is the first such supply chain assessment in CEA. We appreciate these leaders for stepping forward to support this important effort.”

The Market Characterization Report represents the first publication that RII will deliver as part of its work on a three-year USDA Conservation Innovation Grant designed to advance resource efficiency in CEA, a diverse, expanding market that includes greenhouses and vertical farms growing a range of crops, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries.  RII is partnering with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to deploy the grant.

The CEA  Leadership Committee is providing input on key market characterization issues including:

• Supply chain. Describing key market actors, barriers to energy efficiency and the best leverage points for market interventions;
• Energy use. Describing the energy used by producers (including on-site renewable energy, microgrids, and back-up generation);
• Advantages of efficiency. Describing the energy and non-energy benefits realized through implementation of efficiency projects; and
• Baseline identification. Describing key market baselines to be used in evaluating the impact of the market transformation initiative over time.

The organizations represented on RII’s CEA Leadership Committee include:

• American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
• American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers
• CEA Consultancy
• Ceres Greenhouses
• Energy Solutions
• Fifth Season
• Fluence by OSRAM
• Grodan
• Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
• Oregon Association of Nurseries
• Priva
• Resource Innovations
• Schneider Electric
• Signify
• UVM Extension Services
• Zartarian Engineering

For a complete roster, see www.ResourceInnovation.org/TAC.

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Emily Meshell at 318-564-8195 or emily@themaverickpr.com.

About Resource Innovation Institute: Resilient harvests for the next hundred years.

Resource Innovation Institute is a non-profit organization committed to cultivating a better future for all of humanity. Our consortium of members brings perspectives from across the field—uniting architects and engineers, growers and operators, researchers and analysts. Together, we lead the measurement, adoption and celebration of the world’s most efficient agricultural ideas. Founded in 2016 to advise governments, utilities and industry leaders on the resource impacts of cannabis cultivation, an under-studied and resource-intensive market, we have since extended our research to other sectors in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture. To take on the challenges of our changing world, we believe that food, medicine and other vital crops demand data-driven insights, shared with integrity. By nurturing the human connections in our complex and dynamic industry, we can build fundamentally restorative systems for people and planet. Visit our website at ResourceInnovation.org. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

–Resource Innovation Institute