2026 Green Standard Award Nominee: Sun and Earth Certified

Sun and Earth Certified is a nonprofit, third-party certification program that defines what environmentally responsible cannabis cultivation looks like in practice.

Its standards are built around three pillars—Earth Care, Human Empowerment, and Community Engagement—and require certified farms to grow under the sun, cultivate in living soil, avoid toxic synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and meet expectations for fair treatment of farmworkers.

That model responds to an environmental challenge that grew alongside legalization. The expansion of energy-intensive indoor cultivation and industrial agricultural practices has increased concerns about electricity use, soil degradation, water impacts, greenhouse-gas emissions, chemical exposure, and the long-term footprint of cannabis production. Sun and Earth includes these issues in its definition of cannabis safety rather than treating sustainability as a separate concern.

Certification also makes environmental claims more accountable. Terms such as “clean,” “natural,” “organic,” or “regenerative” can be difficult for patients and consumers to evaluate on their own. Sun and Earth provides defined standards and farm-level verification so those claims can be measured against actual cultivation practices.

Its approach also recognizes that sustainability includes the people doing the work. By pairing labor practices and community engagement with soil health and ecological stewardship, the program links environmental responsibility to worker welfare and the survival of small and legacy farms.

That broader framework is especially relevant to medical cannabis. Patients should not have to choose between products that meet their therapeutic needs and production methods that protect workers, communities, and the environment. A sustainable cannabis system must be capable of doing both.

Sun and Earth Certified embodies the Green Standard Award by turning environmental responsibility into a verifiable cultivation standard. Its work shows that soil health, worker welfare, community responsibility, and product integrity are interconnected parts of responsible cannabis production.