Ten years after the invention of a "Lego-style" interlocking hempcrete block captured the imagination of the hemp building world, the technology is making a comeback under a new name and a revamped business model.

The Hemp Build Podcast Ep. 7 presents an interview with Hempitecture’s Mattie Mead and Annie Ball discussing the history of hemp batt fiber insulation and how specifiers can achieve lower embodied carbon and more healthy spaces with a natural plant fiber instead of spray foam or mineral wool insulation.

Students from the Pratt Institute are teaming up with local community group Mothers on the Move to explore how hemp—a building material rarely used in housing—could help retrofit New York’s oldest buildings, improving indoor air quality and lowering heating and cooling emissions.

An industrial hemp research team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York has been awarded $1 million to build a state-funded manufacturing laboratory designed to bridge the gap between raw hemp fiber and the industrial market

Hemp builders and manufacturers of industrial hemp-based building materials will be well-represented at a new conference in Denver planned for March.

The first Industrial Hemp International conference will take place March 25-27 at the Hyatt Regency Aurora-Denver Conference Center. The conference and expo is organized by Morris Beegle and the experienced team that ran the NoCo Hemp Expo for 11 years in northern Colorado.

Virginia-based hemp-lime builder Scott McStacy single-handedly submitted a proposal to adopt International Residential Code Appendix BL (Hemp-Lime “Hempcrete” Construction) into the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code – and on Jan. 6, McStacy appeared before the Board of Housing and Community Development’s General Stakeholder Workgroup Meeting in Glen Allen, VA  and urged the board to adopt Appendix BL. The vote was unanimous in favor. 

The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s agriculture business grows hemp without irrigation, insecticides or plowing. Now its product is helping to build a home in Ogden, KS.

In Episode 5 of the Hemp Build Podcast, host Ray Kaderli goes inside the Cleburne, Texas facility of CannaVision with CEO David Russell to show how industrial hemp is processed into consistent, construction-ready materials. You’ll see hemp bales fresh from the field, how fiber and woody core are separated, how materials are sized and refined, and how precision processing makes hemp suitable for real-world building applications—from hemp-lime (hempcrete) walls to plasters, insulation, and bio-composites.

Greg Wilson, founder and CEO of Murray, KY-based HempWood appears as the guest in the fourth episode of Hemp Build Podcast.

The Lower Sioux Indian Community is on a mission to get its members into healthier homes. Since 2016, the indigenous community, located in Morton, Minnesota, has been growing the main material necessary to build affordable, sustainable homes right on the reservation: hemp. 

Colorado engineer Mark Benjamin of Greeley-based Crown Jade Engineering joined Hemp Build School for the third in a podcast series spotlighting leaders in the hemp building industry and tailored to architects seeking continuing education (CE) credits.

Hemp Build School rolled out a second in a podcast series spotlighting leaders in the hemp building industry and tailored to architects seeking continuing education (CE) credits in December.

Hemp Build School rolled out a new podcast series spotlighting leaders in the hemp building industry and tailored to architects seeking continuing education (CE) credits.

Guests from Colorado-based Healthy Hemp Homes were Eric Milburn, Tanner Bowman and David Milburn

According to builder Jeff Gagnon, a space that’s been insulated with hemp materials stays warm in winter, cool in summer, emits no toxins and is as quiet as snow.

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.

A French lime manufacturer best known for heritage restoration is entering the hemp-lime construction market with a new family of products designed for hempcrete and other plant-based building materials.

Hemp-lime (hempcrete) construction in US residential building codes took a major step forward in Cleveland last week when proposed updates to Appendix BL of the 2027 International Residential Code (IRC) were unanimously approved during the International Code Council (ICC) Committee Week proceedings. An online fundraiser successfully raised more than $12,000 to pay for the code adoption.