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Hempcrete builders in Minnesota are taking a leadership role in the newly launched Minnesota Efficient Builders Coalition (MEBC), which will advance efficient, high-performance, and low-carbon residential construction.
INTERVIEW: Miles Gathright is co-founder of Boardwurks Biocomposites, a Florida-based innovator developing carbon-smart construction panels made from hemp hurd and recycled composites.
The Swiss construction company Openly introduced last month a new class of CO₂ certificates monetizing the carbon dioxide permanently sequestered in buildings constructed with biogenic materials like hempcrete and timber. The launch follows a year of development, founders said.
At this year’s Greenbuild Conference and Expo, held Nov. 4–7 in Los Angeles, bio-based building materials took the spotlight — both on the show floor and in one of the conference’s most crowded sessions.
Hemp Voices
Easily accessible technology and the DIY possibilities of hempcrete lower the barriers for use and make the methodology executable and available to many.
We are insulating 6 existing cabins with my Hemp Blocks at an iconic educational camp in the middle of the desert called Camp Cooper.
What interests us most is the sustainability of building with hemp as well as the energy efficiency and overall superiority of the product.
We seek to bring the cost of sustainable construction below that of traditional construction by combining the hemp distribution, binder manufacturing, and modular (block/panel) production, and training certification all within a single warehouse…with plans to build 50 houses in 2025 within 20 minutes of the factory (thus providing constant projects for our team).
We build homes in harsh climates above 5000' elevation and fire-danger zones. Our clients report that their homes' performance exceeds expectations.
I’m totally fascinated by how hemp turns something as humble as a plant into a superhero building material.
A significant win for Gradek Contracting was pioneering one of the first hempcrete residential projects in Austin, TX.
We are seeing more and more projects reach completion both from first time builders and repeat customers.
Hemp is reviving our community and I believe it’s the perfect blueprint for other communities –especially indigenous or underprivileged communities. That’s still what most interests me about hemp building.
The versatility of hemp is remarkable. Its use cases and properties as a building material (lightweight, fire-resistant, mold-resistant, and durable) make it a practical choice for so many types of eco-friendly construction.
For me, hemp building’s most interesting elements are simplicity, source and performance.
My mission is to create initiatives that directly increase revenue for industrial hemp stakeholders, throughout the value chain, from farmer to user.
As we become more aware of how the environments we live and work in play a role in our overall health, its exciting to think our industry can play a role in bettering people’s lives without even knowing it.
We specialize in high-performance and green building, leveraging cutting-edge building systems to create higher-quality, better-performing homes.
The biggest attraction of hemp lime for me was its antimicrobial resiliency and how the material can regulate humidity in the built environment.
The U.S. Department of Energy has called for net zero embodied carbon and operational energy residential homes to be the new normal by the year 2050. Our solution can deliver on this now! Biobased construction materials are the future and we will live to see their adoption.
IHI is focusing on three initiatives at this time to steward key industry knowledge to make hempcrete available to the mainstream construction industry at scale under professional rules. We are also leaning into cultural wisdom from indigenous housing to bring forward what we learn to help us in modern times.
The understanding that hemplime is currently sequestering carbon at the microscopic level inside all of the construction projects that have been completed in the modern era, as someone is reading this text, just blows my mind.
We design and manufacture blocks and plasters made with hemp and other vegetable fibers.
I was amazed to learn that hemp can be used to build healthy, comfortable homes, while strengthening our economy and farming industry, and benefit the Earth as a regenerative, carbon-sequestering, high-performance building material. With hemp-lime construction, we can build for legacy; multi-generational homes and buildings that last for centuries.
Hemp building materials serve the spaces where we live and work so well. They create environments that are healthy. They contribute to wellness for people who spend time in them.
We have had the opportunity to field test several homes made with hempcrete walls and have measured the actual thermal resistance of the walls.
Every generation has a major shift in their lifetime and I think this is what will be during mine... a more sustainable and regenerative effort at all levels.
I have always been impressed with the performance potential of hemp buildings and the associated impacts on the wellbeing of people.
Hemp Building Videos
Archive
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the special guest at the opening of a second factory on the HempWood campus in Murray, KY on Aug. 5.
Hemp building materials will take a prominent place at the Rocky Mountain Natural Building Conference Bozeman Sept. 18-20. Hemp will take the podium along with cob, straw bale, passive house, natural plaster and other natural building technologies, at the Colorado-based Natural Building Alliance's biennial conference held since 2003.
Colorado couple Vladislav “Vladi” Skrejev and Diana Skrejeva have waited a long time — years, in fact —for hemp-lime insulation work to commence on their 2,000 sq. foot home in the foothills of Colorado, but the excitement when the house was finally hemped made it all worthwhile, they said.
A Texas-based building materials company Aggricrete has announced a new architectural design competition focused on sustainable, modular housing. The Intentionally Designed Expandable Architectural Structures (I.D.E.A.S.) House Design Contest is now open for submissions from students, professionals, and design enthusiasts around the world.
Minnesota appears to be the first US state on the path to adopting the newest official residential building codes featuring plant-based building materials after a July 15 hearing in St. Paul.
Architects, builders and hemp homeowner hopefuls gathered in Austin July 11 at a landmark event celebrating the city’s formal adoption of hemp-lime construction (commonly known as “hempcrete”) into its residential building codes.
Colorado-based hemp-building pioneer John Patterson of Tiny Hemp Houses returns to “Pine Tree State” of Maine for his third hemp building workshop at the Diggers Cooperative in Acton, ME.
On a chilly Pacific Redwoods morning in April, Joann Kerns, 68, was perched on her garage roof in Eureka, CA filming a crane installing the first 2,000 lb. wall panel for her new hempcrete ADU (accessory dwelling unit) when the operation took a surprising turn.
On Friday, July 11, Austinites will gather to celebrate a historic step toward sustainable construction with a special event marking the city’s adoption of hemp-lime—commonly known as “hempcrete”—into the local building code. The celebration, hosted at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS) from 6:30–8:30 p.m., will also launch a landmark new book, Hempsteads: Architectural Details for Hemp-Lime Construction by hemp building pioneer Timothy Callahan of Asheville, NC.
German hempcrete builders will welcome international hempcrete designers, builders and suppliers at a free open house event in June in a cutting-edge tech startup hub.
Currently Colorado’s largest planned hempcrete project, the Kosmos Stargazing Resort, has welcomed its first guests in a 1,200 sq. ft. solar-powered off-grid hemp-lime (hempcrete) villa in the San Luis Valley.
A new book of architectural details for hemp-lime construction will be published in May, written by a pioneering US hempcrete builder who helped co-author the hemp-lime appendix published for the first time in the 2024 International Residential Codes.
The city of Austin, TX on April 10 officially adopted hempline (hempcrete) in the city’s Building Technical Codes as an innovative building material to be used in local construction.
A hemp block and hemp-lime insulation workshop held in Tucson, AZ last week marks the beginning of a summer project renovating an environmental learning center for area students.
NoCo has been described as the "hemp chamber of commerce" due to its role in bringing together industry representatives from every sector, including a strong support for hemp-based construction
The consortium formed by the organizations Rawblox, Hempire UA e OpenDoorUkraine.NL has received €4 million in funding to build over 400 sustainable homes in Ukraine using straw and hemp-based technologies to support rural families affected by the war.
A Chicago-based women-owned construction company is insulating one of the largest projects in Chicago so far with hemp building materials.
Homeowners returning to their burned-out homes in southern California are facing the painful consequences of the US construction industry’s reliance on cheap plastics and petroleum-based building materials: Not only are these materials easily combusted in a wildfire, but they leave behind a toxic soup that has polluted waterways and poisoned air quality.
As publishers of HempBuildMag.com, we are excited to bring a new and updated edition of the Hemp Building Directory for 2025.
We are watching the industry grow and expand in this comprehensive directory of the international hemp building industry in 2025. Our listings cover more than 700 unique companies and experts in 32 different countries in 26 categories.
Hemp-lime construction expanded further into the national spotlight this week when a California film festival awarded first prize to a short documentary featuring the Morton, MN-based Lower Sioux hempcrete building team.
The largest hemp project in the United States consisting of 12 duplex units in Newburyport, MA will open to residents next month. Builder David Hall and architect Keith Moskow of Hall and Moskow Corporation have been working since 2023 on the Hillside Center for Sustainable Living, an attainably-priced multi-family housing development, from their own design of hempcrete over steel frame panels. The new hempcrete development will welcome its first residents on February 15.
An international gathering of hemp building experts will host its annual conference and expo in the United States for the first time at the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Morton, MN in October, 2025.
Two hospitalized members of the hemp building community have received support from members of the industry through GoFundMe donations.
We’re sticking out our neck at HempBuild Mag and trying to predict what will happen in the wonderful and confusing hemp building industry in the new year.
Hemp-lime innovators Wittenberg, WI-based Sativa Building Systems announced that the company has been awarded $1.9 million in a SBIR Phase II contract from the US Army. The two-year contract will focus on developing a bio-based insulation system using hemp hurd and mycelium, founder Zachery Popp told HempBuild Mag.
A November gathering of scientists and researchers meeting in Malaysia shows how opportunities from the hemp plant – both for medicinal and industrial uses such as building materials – is spreading through Asia and gathering momentum worldwide.
The USHBA announced that 10 members had flung their hats into the ring to run for the board of directors in the December 2024 elections.
One Plant is a documentary that delves into hemp’s industrial, environmental, and health benefits. Broken down into chapters that focus on fiber, grain and flower, the film aims to address misconceptions, hoping to bring more attention and awareness to the plant. Jordan Berger, a CBD farmer, director and film producer shared with HempBuild Mag his personal journey from the film's inception to execution.
Multiple US hemp-building companies will make a big splash for around 25,000 visitors at one of the largest US construction sustainability expos and conferences later this month in Philadelphia, thanks to collaboration and the generosity of a hemp processing company and a hemp-building non-profit.
Hempcrete builders in Minnesota are taking a leadership role in the newly launched Minnesota Efficient Builders Coalition (MEBC), which will advance efficient, high-performance, and low-carbon residential construction.