Row upon row of feathery leaves create an emerald blanket inside the greenhouse. Just beyond, a torrent of water rushes through the hydro power station that helps to grow the thriving plants. In the distance, snow-capped Mount Taranaki is ethereal, shrouded in mist.
This is the amazing place where Greenfern Industries are building an amazing business in a new industry.
It’s a unique and pristine location in New Zealand’s North Island and the culmination of a dream to do something more impactful with their renewable power, rather than merely selling back to the national power grid.
Set on the banks of the Waingongoro River in Normanby, growing and extraction facilities will be built to house thousands of cannabis plants destined to be turned into premium quality, pharmaceutical grade products.
“Our vision is to become New Zealand’s regional hub for the commercialisation of world-class medicinal and therapeutic cannabis products while in harmony with the environment”
“At Greenfern Medicinal We Will Stand by Our Name, Our Service and Our Product.”
Greenfern utilises the latest research and works with various institutes to implement research programs that give scientists and New Zealand-based students the chance to explore a new field while gaining work experience in an exciting new industry.
Greenfern currently has several novel research initiatives.
Greenfern is committed to environmental sustainability in all aspects of our processes. We intend to be a role model company for sustainability and environmentally-friendly practices.
Using the renewable electricity from our own on-site hydro power station means our carbon footprint will be dramatically reduced.
View our sustainability strategy mapped to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
We are a Toitū net carbonzero certified organisation in line with ISO 14064-1. We are proud to take science-based action to sustain the life of this place, our people and our future.
We have committed to our low carbon future with our Toitū net carbonzero certified operations.
While we take action to reduce emissions, we are proactively offsetting our impacts through the purchase of carbon credits from various projects, which have the additional benefit of social co-benefits.
B Corp - We are the first New Zealand medicinal cannabis company to be awarded B Corp certification.
Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. They are companies that make decisions to create a positive impact for their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.
The power of blockchain will be the backbone of a traceability system for all our products and processes. This system will provide assurances for the authenticity, quality and provenance of all our products.
At age 3½, Theo began to have grand mal seizures, frightening seizures that would grip Theo many times a day. Doctors struggled to get the condition under control and Theo's father TJ spent hundreds of hours researching how he could help his son. He discovered that US research had suggested it was possible cannabis could be used to treat epilepsy.
Finally, TJ began to give Theo medicinal cannabis oil. It worked. And Theo, now 8, has been seizure-free since. Theo is back to being a care-free boy; the Irvin family has returned to normal.
Theo's father TJ is now a Greenfern team member and Medicinal Cannabis advocate.
Honouring young Theo’s journey, Greenfern has long term ambitions to produce a clinically proven cannabinoid epilepsy medicine.
Mt Taranaki is a landmark of cultural significance on the western shores of the central North Island. It was formed some 120,000 years ago and scientists believe the mountain is dormant rather than extinct, even though it hasn’t erupted since 1775.
From the upper reaches of Mt Taranaki, snowy slopes form rivers which run down to the lowlands in a radial pattern. One of these rivers is Waingongoro, which means ‘resting ‘or ‘sleeping place’ and was the name given to the river by Maori from the Aotea canoe of the Great Fleet, who arrived in New Zealand about 1350 AD and made their way over land to settle in South Taranaki.
The Waingongoro has its source on the south-eastern slopes of Mount Taranaki between the Stratford Plateau and Dawson Falls and winds 74 km through productive dairying country to reach the sea at Ohawe, seven km west of Hawera.
Situated on this river lies a township called Normanby. It is close to here that in 1903 a hydro power scheme was commissioned and built using a 6m tall weir to dam the river at a looped section which allowed water to be taken via a piped section that fed a pelton wheel generator where the water was then fed back into the loop. Normanby hydro used to power the surrounding towns of Hawera, Eltham and Manaia. The scheme was decommissioned in 1967 then rebuilt in 2011.
Greenfern are the owners of this wonderful Hydro-Power station, have re-commissioned it and are currently generating with the renewably produced electricity being channeled through its indoor cannabis operations and hemp hub and the excess power being sold to the National grid providing stable recurring revenue.
