How did you get involved in hemp construction, and what is a hemp house?

I’ve been involved in the construction industry for over 20 years, building family homes and apartment buildings. As a result, about eight years ago, I began to think that something needed to change because the construction industry is one of the most polluting and energy-intensive sectors. As a construction professional, I realized that traditional building materials can have harmful effects on health, and the construction industry represents a significant environmental burden. The phenomenon known as “sick building syndrome” means that building materials release toxic substances into the air, which can lead to long-term health problems. I became acquainted with hemp construction technology in Italy at a four-day hemp construction event, and as a result, I started using hemp and promoting this healthy and environmentally friendly construction method in Hungary.

How did you transition into business-oriented hemp construction?

Since I had already learned the technology in Italy, we essentially built a building for sale with the intention of establishing it in Hungary. More and more people are getting to know this technology, and when it comes to making a choice, many prefer it over building with traditional materials like bricks.

Furthermore, the European Union aims to achieve full carbon neutrality in the construction industry by 2050, which includes the requirement that buildings across Europe can only be constructed from carbon-neutral building materials. Hemp as a building material is not only carbon-neutral but actually carbon-negative. In addition, hemp sequesters 8-10 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare.

What supports this claim, and what scientific results confirm it?

Hemp is a natural building material that decomposes at the end of its lifespan, much like adobe. Various labs have conducted studies, and experts have found that during its growth cycle, hemp can sequester roughly twice as much carbon dioxide in approximately 100 days as a similarly sized mature forest does over an entire year. In concrete terms, this means that a forest sequesters 2-4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, while hemp sequesters 8-10 tons per hectare.

When incorporated as a building material, it sequesters much more carbon dioxide than is used in transportation, nylon packaging, or the production of lime used as a binder. Demonstrating this, hemp construction results in roughly 100 kilograms of additional carbon per cubic meter, making it carbon-negative. To offset the carbon-positive portion of a plastic fitting in a building, you can reduce it, thereby achieving a carbon-neutral construction method.

We’ve been building carbon-neutral buildings for seven years already, so we already meet the 2050 requirements. This means that the buildings we are constructing now will be worth much more in a few years than if we were to sell a building constructed with a different technology.

In Western Europe, hemp is cultivated on thousands of hectares for construction purposes, with the construction industry utilizing the byproduct, hemp stalks. From processed hemp stalks, we can produce hemp shives and hemp fiber. Hemp shives can be used to manufacture hemp bricks, which can be used as partition bricks for main walls. Hemp fiber can be used as insulation material for buildings, as thermal insulation panels, replacing glass wool, mineral wool, and even exterior insulation.

Will your raw material be usable as insulation material on its own?

What we currently use is inherently a filling material. This material meets current thermal insulation requirements starting from a thickness of 35 centimeters, and from 50 centimeters and above, it can provide the thermal characteristics of a passive house. Due to the mixed-in lime, it has antiviral, antibacterial, and mold-resistant properties, and lime does not set immediately like cement; it sets over decades, continuously binding with carbon dioxide. This process creates a very healthy microclimate inside the building.

Can it be used as standalone insulation for a non-hemp-built house?

Yes, indeed. It can be used for the facade insulation of panel houses, large buildings, or even for retrofit insulation.

When do you plan to start marketing it, and when can it be expected to enter the market?

At the moment, we can only progress on a small scale because we can’t gather a billion forints. The complete project we want to implement will cost roughly 2 billion forints, but we can start with 200 million in the first phase. The 200 million is enough to begin processing on 100 hectares, which is sufficient for building and insulating about 50 family houses. Once we have the raw material and primary processing in place, we’d like to start secondary processing, which would include setting up a thermal insulation, batt-making production line. We estimate that thermal insulation batt production can start in 2-3 years, and until then, we’ll be selling the processed raw material.

What will the supplier chain be like, and how do you envision the operation of this business model?

We have two visions for this. In Somogy County, there is a large farmer who owns a thousand hectares of land, and next year we will be producing on a hundred hectares there, and then, expanding this model, we will implement it throughout the country. The farmer also has barns, from which he can provide us with one or two, and if necessary, even more in the future. In addition, we plan to give smaller landowners the opportunity to participate in production alongside farmers with hundreds of hectares of land.

What are the specific plans of Kenderikum Zrt. that you aim to realize with the funds raised in the campaign?

In the campaign launched on Tőkeportal.com, the minimum funding goal is 90 million forints, which will be used to purchase a hemp processing machine capable of processing 200 hectares of hemp in one shift within a year, and 400 hectares in two shifts. Ideally, we would like to manufacture these machines in collaboration with Hungarian machinery manufacturers. Even if only the minimum funding is raised, we will purchase the hemp processing machine, and independent hemp farmers in Somogy County will produce the hemp for us, and we will buy it for processing. Additionally, several hemp farmers have indicated that they would bring their hemp stalks for processing, so we can also source from them.

We plan to sell the raw material at the prices of foreign hemp processing facilities, as there is already significant demand for it.

What will be the price of a hemp house compared to a brick one?

We are building hemp houses in the Szeged area at a cost of 600,000 forints per square meter. There are many contractors in the country, and each has their own pricing. We provide the raw material and the technology, and we teach them the technique for free. We organize open days where we educate architects and builders.

I can say that it is not more expensive than a brick building. The only drawback of this technology is that it has a drying time of 5-6 months. But with hemp bricks, there is no waiting time, and anyone can have a family house in three months.