How Digital Transformation is Driving Sustainability in the Cannabis Industry
As sustainable and ethical business practices increasingly fuel consumer purchasing habits and investors’ decisions, significant competitive advantages are available to cannabusinesses that invest in operating sustainability.
By embracing the digital transformation, cannabis operators can leverage technology to improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance as well as the bottom line. Technology is changing the way the cannabis industry does business – but it is also accelerating efforts to tackle and improve sustainability.
Technology: An Investment, not an Expense
The cannabis industry has looked to similar, “parallel” industries for digital transformation inspiration. Seeing how data has played an integral part in supply chain management in traditional agriculture and food/beverage manufacturing, sophisticated cannabis operators are investing in technology such RFID, environmental controls, and business management software to create a technology ecosystem that supports sustainability and profitability.
RFID & Barcoding
From plants to packaging, the use of RFID and barcoding effectively eliminates pen and paper, manual data entry, and human error. This is critical for creating efficiencies throughout the entire supply chain.
Environmental Controls
From moisture readings to lighting controls, investing in an environmental control system that can not only automate the environment, but also provide programs that can act accordingly to the needs of the plants and even anticipate specific events such as watering or feeding cycle can greatly reduce costs and waste associated with personnel, lighting, water usage, waste, and more.
Business Management Software
For many cannabusinesses software, specifically cannabis ERP software, can be their greatest asset. Combining traceability, compliance, and basic operational processes with the ability to connect other technology (RFID, barcoding, environmental controls, warehousing, etc) for a complete data set in one solution, ERP is often the central nervous system of cannabis operators.
While these are just a few examples of technology that can drive sustainability, there are dozens of solutions emerging in this age of digital transformation providing an exceptional opportunity to achieve supply chain transparency. Operators can transform mandatory compliance requirements into benchmarking data and leverage existing traceability technology to realize efficiencies, drive sustainability, and increase bottom lines.
The Sustainable Future is Digital
Technology is playing a major role in helping operators make good on their promises of sustainability. The majority of enterprise cannabis business leaders are already investing in cutting edge-technologies to drive business growth and maintain their competitive edge. And they’re seizing the opportunity to leverage these same technologies to improve their ESG practices.
As the industry looks toward a greener future, regulators and consumers will be holding operators accountable for their environmental footprints. Cannabusinesses have an opportunity to make a difference as the industry evolves. As prohibition continues to dwindle across the World and cannabis becomes a global industry, we will see that the dominant business and brand leaders that emerge have sustainability built into their core.
