It’s nice when the right thing is also the financially smart thing. For those of us in the cannabis industry, sustainable bioidentical ingredients let us do both.
What does a more sustainable industry look like?
To the casual observer, the agricultural side of the legal cannabis industry may appear idyllic, but underneath the relaxed hippy-farmer cliché is an incredibly intense business. The overhead, the labor, the continual resource inputs required to keep a grow afloat – as amazing as agricultural systems and technology can be, cannabis cultivation is a tough line of work that can generate some less than idyllic environmental costs.
The energy, water, and pesticides that the plant demands is taxing on both the environment and the profit margins of those located throughout the cannabis supply chain. Most cultivators are doing their best to control for these factors, but at least for now, these are just the unavoidable costs of doing business.
These costs add up quickly, especially when traditional agriculture is used for things that it’s not well suited for – like rare cannabinoid production. Cannabinoids like THCV and CBC appear in such low quantities within the plant that their cultivation and extraction creates proportionally higher amounts of both agricultural and economic waste than the cultivation and extraction of comparatively plentiful THC and CBD.
While synthesis isn’t a replacement for major cannabinoid focused agriculture, it can be used to create rare cannabinoids much faster, without the need for pesticides, and with significantly less water and energy. This means more green in your wallet, and in your footprint.
The science is there – so are the examples from outside of cannabis
Companies like BayMedica have been using chemistry to create safe, environmentally sustainable cannabinoids for years. If the idea of recreating natural ingredients in a lab feels strange, it shouldn’t. Odds are that you regularly consume synthetic ingredients that are more sustainable than their “naturally produced” counterparts. Here’s a quick exercise to prove it:
What three things do ingredients like hyaluronic acid, palm oil, and vanilla extract all have in common?
- Historically, the harvesting and production of each of these ingredients has involved some pretty terrible exploitation, ethical compromises, or environmental blowback (all of which are far more egregious than anything seen in the US’s legal cannabis space).
- Thanks to chemistry and ingenuity, each of these ingredients can now be created without the environmental or ethical repercussions of the past.
- It’s a near certainty that right now as you read this, one or more of these sustainably manufactured synthetic ingredients is sitting in your home.
Safe synthetic ingredients are ubiquitous – they’re in your groceries, your beauty supplies, and your cannabinoid products. Like any other market, buying from a disreputable supplier may not be the safest bet, but we’ve broken down the information that you need to stay safe.
Download our safe synthetics guide
It’s an evolution, not a revolution
Cultivators aren’t going anywhere – nor should they. The vast majority of licensed growers are not only providing amazing products that people love, but they’re doing so while acting as responsibly as the constraints of agricultural technology will allow them to. Chemistry isn’t here to take over, it’s here to augment the agricultural backbone of the cannabis industry by filling the niches that traditional agriculture isn’t designed for. As those niches grow to become larger segments of the market – as is the case with bioidentical minor cannabinoids – companies like BayMedica will have a growing role in reducing the industry’s overall environmental footprint.
Changes in the cannabinoid space aren’t just inevitable, they’re vital. Learn more about the Baymedica Platform or contact us to see how BayMedica can change your business for the better or request our Cannabinoids White Paper.