Concrete, steel, and wood pale in comparison as a sustainable building material to the plant known to grow like a weed — hemp.

With construction consuming a whopping 40% of the world's global energy and resources, it is imperative that this industry moves towards more sustainable practices in the face of climate change's many threats. This means moving away from building materials which are mined from the earth or harvested from rapidly depleting forests, and making the switch to renewable resources — and hemp is the perfect material for the job, in the form of a mixture known as hempcrete.

What is Hempcrete?

Hempcrete is a building composite similar to concrete, except it's made by wet-mixing hemp hurds (woody fibers from the plant core) with a lime-based binder and water. This mixture can then be cast into molds or applied directly as a wet loose-fill material which hardens once dried, serving several construction and insulation purposes.