What Makes Hemp Sustainable?
The North American Industrial Hemp Council estimates that hemp can be used to make at least 25,000 products.
Hemp can be grown anywhere on the planet except for Antarctica (sorry Antarctica!). It is mold resistant, heat resistant, and pest resistant. It is fast-growing, easy to harvest, and every part of the plant (seeds, stalks, roots, and leaves) can be used in thousands of ways (and counting). Hemp can be made into: animal feed, biochar, batteries, biofuel, CBD, drinks, flooring, food, hempcrete, insulation, medicine, paper, plastics, semiconductors and capacitors, textiles, the list goes on. Many of these uses could replace products with toxic manufacturing processes that create endless waste.
Hemp was viewed as a useful plant with many applications until it was banned alongside recreational cannabis in 1970. For close to 50 years, it was illegal to grow hemp anywhere in the United States. Luckily, 2018’s Farm Bill formally distinguished hemp as a low-THC form of cannabis, not a narcotic, and its cultivation and sale was once again sanctioned. Over the last few years, a resurgence of interest in the plant has emerged, and a new generation is learning that hemp is a sustainable solution for attaining carbon neutrality- one of the top ways to battle climate change. Paired with the right farming, processing, and manufacturing techniques hemp products can be carbon neutral or even carbon negative.
One acre of hemp removes approximately 11,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per growth cycle.
Carbon emissions have increased our planet’s temperature and remain one of the top causes of climate change. By reducing carbon emissions and utilizing carbon sequestering techniques such as growing crops like hemp, we can make progress towards the international goal of "limiting global warming” to well below 2°C – ideally 1.5°C – above pre-industrial levels.” Hemp stores the carbon it captures in the ground where it helps the plant grow quickly enough to have multiple harvests per year. Harvesting hemp isn’t harmful to the soil it’s grown in, and paired with regenerative farming practices, growing hemp can improve soil conditions.
This versatile, multi-functional, plant with myriad uses can also be used in numerous industries such as plastics, autos, textiles, paper, and construction that have some of the highest carbon emissions.
Extensive research proves hemp can be a viable replacement for many of the products that are contributing to higher emissions.
For example, a 2013 study by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers showed hemp is a sustainable replacement for graphene in making supercapacitors. Supercapacitors store energy to be used as a power source and can be an efficient alternative to batteries. Hemp is inexpensive to produce, doesn’t have to be mined, and may even make a superior product with a longer lifespan. Items that last longer mean less trash in our landfills.
Additionally, hemp contains the potential to reduce deforestation, which is an extreme threat to environmental sustainability. It’s estimated that we have lost one-third of our planet’s forest to deforestation, and deforestation contributes to at least 10% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. We are currently cutting down more trees than we are growing, trees that have lived on this planet for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, and regrowth takes decades or longer. Hemp can be a substitute for many of the products that trees are cut down to make, such as paper and textiles. In fact, one acre of hemp can make as much paper as four acres of trees! While cotton doesn’t have the highest carbon footprint, it does require a lot of water to grow, and water is not a renewable resource in our current climate.
Hemp requires 50% less water to grow and has been used to make textiles for thousands of years.
Considering it’s only been three years since Americans have regained legal access to cultivate the hemp plant, we are at the tip of the iceberg as we learn how hemp can help create a cleaner and more efficient planet.