As October draws to a close, Isabelle van Doorn, Plant Scientist and Business Development Manager at greenhub, has prepared for publishing a milestone whitepaper that brings the CEA community closer together. "After years focussed on vertical farming in my studies and career, I first wanted to capture what I've learned and give something back to the industry, and to all the amazing people I met along the way."
A whitepaper born from collaboration
That led to greenhub's latest publication, "Bridging the Data Divide: Building a Common Standard for CEA." The 33-page whitepaper tackles one of the industry's biggest challenges: inconsistent measurement and reporting standards that make it difficult to compare performance, research results, and investment potential across different types of growing environments.
"In Controlled-Environment Agriculture, identical numbers often mean very different things, depending on how, where, and by whom they're measured," explains Isabelle. "We wanted to clarify those inconsistencies and build a foundation for a shared data language."
The paper was co-authored by eight experts spanning science, engineering, and production, including greenhouse growers, vertical farming innovators, and researchers, as this topic requires a broad range of perspectives.
© greenhub
From science to business and back again
"Writing this was a way to summarize two years of lessons, both scientific and practical," she says. "I switched from plant science into business development, and in that role, I met growers, breeders, technicians, and engineers across Europe. I started to see how each group uses data differently, and how those differences often create misunderstandings."
She laughs when recalling her early confusion. "At first, I thought I was the only one who couldn't do unit conversions during conversations! However, I soon realized that many people struggle with this and often validate this feeling in cross-disciplinary meetings, because each system measures things differently. A temperature, a light intensity, or even a yield number might look the same but mean something completely different depending on how it's recorded, and in which farm architecture and scale level."
When "yield" doesn't mean the same thing
One of the biggest revelations came from the way efficiency and yield are reported. "Everybody has their own method," she explains. "I've seen output expressed per tray, per linear meter, or per square meter, but is that cultivated area or total ground surface? And if it's multilayer, how do you compare that to a single-layer greenhouse? These variations have a huge impact on how performance and profitability are interpreted." For different crop types, again, an entirely different documentation.
The same holds for climate metrics. Isabelle recalls her shock when she discovered how differently vertical farms and greenhouses calculate with vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and that in greenhouses, the humidity deficit is more common. "In vertical farms, it's relatively close to the way it is documented in science; you can estimate VPD at the plant level using these methods. But in a greenhouse, the climate zones vary so much that you need multiple sensors to map it out," she explains. "Where and how you measure is critical, and that complexity is often overlooked."
© Marta del Moral Arroyo | HortiDaily.com
Isabelle van Doorn, Alexander Jaworski, and Paolo Sadella, at the GreenHub stand at Greentech Amsterdam 2025
Collaboration across boundaries
Recognizing that she couldn't write such a comprehensive guide alone, she invited experts from across the sector to contribute. "I asked almost everyone I knew might join in on such an initiative," she admits with a smile. "The response was incredibly positive. We brought together people from greenhouses, breeding, AI, and engineering. Everyone wanted to help build this bridge." I also received great support internally from my co-author and colleague, Alexander.
She highlights some of the standout contributions. "Laura van de Kreeke from Growy had this amazing talent for giving feedback for simplifying complex CO₂ and efficiency calculations, often delivered with humor. Katia Kouloumprouka Zacharaki, who's an expert in strawberries from three disciplines: breeding, indoor growing, and greenhouse cultivation, brought a holistic perspective on the paper on light, water, and the structure of it. And Pantelis Kleanthidis from Blue Radix was instrumental in sparring about greenhouse growing and his experience working with growers to sparring about how AI interprets root zone and canopy data differently."
Tackling a shared challenge
For Isabelle, the key challenge uniting both greenhouse and vertical farm operators is comparability. "That's the real struggle: how do you benchmark across systems? How do you attract the right investors when your data isn't comparable?" she asks.
She adds that the growing complexity of data ecosystems makes this even harder. "Everyone wants to be in control of their data and climate computer, but then you have so many data silos that don't talk to each other. You end up with a stack on a stack on a stack, and mostly reacting, even small changes can have a huge impact on such a system and are not easy to do. By standardizing formats, we can start to align that communication and make cross-sector learning easier, and then valuable lessons and tools will get less lost in translation."
Download the full whitepaper here.
For more information:
Greenhub Solutions GmbH
Alexander Jaworski, Chief Operating Officer
[email protected]
Isabelle van Doorn, Business Development Manager
[email protected]
www.greenhub.eu