AI4EARTH: The digital transformation of the Industrial Hemp Industry

Abstract

Stage 1: Knowledge

?The objective of this research is to determine the following:

1.????How does the growth of hemp impact environmental health?

2.????How will the digital transformation of hemp processing become a long-term Nature-Based Solution (NBS)?

3.????Is the fourth industrial revolution of hemp the answer to meeting global sustainability agendas?

Cannabis sativa L., hemp or industrial hemp, is a widely researched commodity crop grown in over 40 countries and remains illegal or controlled in many nations. Its extraordinary natural abilities enable opportunities despite our current dire market outlook. The industry requires modern market imperatives such as high-value, low-cost processing and manufacturing, as well as global distribution. Unfortunately, due to its ban, the hemp industry cannot advance technologically like other sectors. Governments and industry giants worldwide continue to evaluate controls around the crop as the industry progresses.

The hemp industry was valued at USD 6.8 billion in 2022 (ResearchAndMarkets, 2022), yet in 2020, only USD 42 million of hemp-traded products were recorded on international data sets (United Nations, 2022). Notably, reports indicate that the global production of hemp equates to approximately 220,000 hectares in 2022; this is significant considering Russia alone reportedly grew over 700,000 hectares in 1935 before the rise of oil!

The 12 millennia-old industry’s primary uses of hemp include food, fibre and cannabinoids. Industrial hemp is a fibre derived from the plant’s stalk used in various applications, including energy, textiles, paper, plastic, construction materials and graphene replacements in semiconductors. Hemp has several well-documented environmental benefits, including carbon sequestration (hemp sequestrates more CO2 per hectare than any commercial crop or forest), soil regeneration, absorption of chemicals and toxins and anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and thermo-regulating properties.

Advanced Bio Material Technologies (ABMT) has patented the world’s first Industry 4.0 (IR4) application for hemp. ABMT is the only company focused on multi-national distribution within the hemp industry. ABMT estimates that 5,000 hectares of hemp will facilitate the manufacturing of 50,000 tonnes of AI-formulated eco-friendly materials. and its facility model can be replicated in all climates hemp can grow in. The combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) and Machine Learning (ML) will redefine the economics of the hemp industry. This intellectual property (IP) permits the creation of next-generation smart factories that offer the cost-effective mass production of secondary hemp fibre products with mass customisation and automated quality control.

The global hemp industry was analysed using several key concepts, including Industry 5.0 (IR5) transformation, Industry 4.0, pollution reduction and waste management, environmental health and safety, quality management, international standards, circular economies, sustainability, and the diffusion of innovations theory.

Various materials, including books, research papers and journal articles, were obtained from Google, Google Scholar and the Strathclyde Andersonian Library. This was compared to the information provided by Advanced Bio Material Technologies and interviews with board members of the European Hemp Association and Pan African Hemp Association. Statistics, industry and market analyses and reports were obtained from the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, Our World in Data, Deloitte, the United Nations, Grandview Research and the Roosevelt Institute. Online sources include Statistica.com, MarketsandMarkets and other peer-accepted sources such as the Visual Capitalist.

Positivist research philosophy provides an overview of the worldwide hemp economy by collecting quantitative and qualitative data on international policy and literature concerning the crop and its associated industries. Through a narrative systematic literature review system prescribed in the Journal for Business Research, this thesis explores the global hemp industry’s continuous disruption and ABMT’s digital transformation of this natural fibre industry. It also aims to identify gaps in the hemp industry using sSWOT (sustainable SWOT) and SWOT analysis to introduce new objectives to streamline the sector further and provide opportunities for the advancement of research in hemp and its associated industries.

The study’s findings show that although hemp is already a well-documented sector with globally established markets, differences in legislation and a lack of digital processing may have contributed to the massive underreporting of its use.

The ABMT-patented digital transformation of the hemp crop can mitigate several challenges, which are needed for broader market adoption of the industrial fibre. The rapid acceleration of the digital processing and production of hemp fibre could alleviate economic losses in nations willing to adopt the commercialised growth of cannabis fibre and negate climate and waste crisis issues while meeting sustainability agenda goals, reducing pollution, increasing decarbonisation and providing soil remediation and carbon credit market opportunities. At the same time, it will create new circular economies for environmentally friendly feedstocks, which will replace current harmful feedstocks and thereby reduce several environmental health problems. Additionally, the digitisation of the industry could allow for rapid additions to the critical need for real-time, big data for the Internet of Materials (IoM), providing transparency and traceability across both horizontal and vertical value chains.

The Industry 4.0 transformation of the global industrial hemp industry can revolutionise how the world produces and consumes goods. Reducing CO2 emissions, oil consumption, cotton and water utilization, and plastic pollution creates positive environmental and economic benefits. Based on these advantages, leveraging industrial hemp in industry 4.0 could be highly beneficial, leading to more efficient and circular production and consumption models. According to the World Economic Forum, ‘harnessing and managing the risk of industry 4.0 technology, if gotten right, could create a revolution in the “life on land” agenda that, for the first time in human history, would enable society to realise the full value of nature and catalyse a new, inclusive bioeconomy’ (World Economic Forum, 2019).

The last time the global supply chain was broken, like during the pandemic, was during World War 2. The potential of the global industrial hemp industry to address these issues and enable sustainable production and consumption models is a welcome prospect. By leveraging hemp’s benefits, we can work towards a thoughtfully reimagined future that offers economic, environmental, and social solutions and a path towards a nature-based economy.

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