For those of us who spend our working lives worrying if the next generations will even survive, the global building and construction industry is a source of some angst. Yes, all those people have got to have places to live, and work, and to get cured of diseases caused by lack of antibiotics (LSS ad nauseam) The trouble with Construction is that it’s so eye-wateringly carbon expensive. Here’s one long fact for one short blog: if you add all their carbon costs together (resource extraction, transport, construction, demolition, recycling, plus cooking all those enormous English Breakfasts they all eat), it all adds up to a whopping 37% of global emissions. Any ideas?
One way ahead is to make the materials they use for things like floors, ceilings, walls and so on, a lot more planet- friendly. Which is why we want to showcase the work of a British firm called UK Hempcrete. [1]Hempcrete is an exciting new type of biocomposite made from the stalks of hemp plants, as well as more traditional materials such as lime and sands. [2] But the new mix carries two key advantages. Firstly , and unlike traditional building materials it actually acts as a sink for CO2 over the course of its use. Secondly, it’s hygroscopic, allowing for much better moisture balance in buildings made from it. Every year we burn billions of tonnes of fuels trying to keep our buildings warm and damp- free. This new material gets around that problem almost entirely. But you can read a lot more about this company and its subsidiaries from their website and our other links; they’re much better at it than we are.
And, as you’re asking, do we have an interest in this company? Financially, no-we’d never even heard of them, or hempcrete, until our researchers flagged them up this morning. But we do have an interest in survival. And long ago we decided that it would not come from making people more virtuous, but by setting up ways to let people make money from progress. Which is why we plug, shamelessly, the work of all sorts of companies here, from net zero aviation folk to Biotechnology enthusiasts in the heart of the Cambridge Science Park. (LSS passim) Of course we keep the usual media/PR links to these outfits when we’ve finished. But that’s more on your behalf, gentle readers, not ours. Any attempt to get our construction industry onto a more sustainable, cleaner and rational footing will always earn the support of this blog. Good luck, UK Hempcrete-and keep it coming.
[1]https://www.ukhempcrete.com/
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete
[3]https://www.ukhempcrete.com/services/material-supply/
#global warming #carbon emissions #ukhempcrete #sustainability #consrtuction industry #building
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