Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Hemp has long had more uses than getting high. The plant is now increasingly being used in the construction of houses, with huge benefits for the climate. The only issue is growing enough to meet surging demand.

Blocks of hemp used for house construction.

OLDENBURG — To be clear: Nobody smoked weed at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first semi-detached house made of hemp in Lower Saxony in northwest Germany. This rite-of-passage ceremony to celebrate the completion of the building served nothing more than cold beer.

Christian Eiskamp had spent decades building single-family houses in the sprawling housing complexes in the south of Oldenburg, a city of just over 100,000 people. Then he had the intuition that the heyday of concrete could be coming to an end because of its poor impact on the climate. Searching on Google, he found hemp as an alternative building material.

"It was an eye-opener for me to read that the concrete industry is responsible for 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions," Eiskamp says.

In his search for alternatives, he'D invited a consultant who calls himself a "hemp engineer" and began building the duplex to rent out later, before such hemp houses became marketed more widely.

Sustainable construction Hemp House in Bellingham, Washington after the hampcrete is cast. Wikimedia CommonsOut of a Pippi Longstocking movie The finished house doesn't look like hemp on the outside. It's clad in wood, with a porch and a green roof, like something out of a Pippi Longstocking movie. The construction does not work without concrete, but the material is only in the base plate and the supporting frame. Similar to half-timbered construction, this "skeleton" is lined, in this case with bricks made of pressed hemp straw bonded with lime mortar. The construction costs are about 15% higher compared to solid construction with the same equipment. Since the house was completed, more than a thousand interested people have visited it. IN June, more than 700 people came to an "open weekend" alone. The next project will be a hemp eco-settlement with small residential units, a community room, car sharing and lawn mower sharing. Slowly, the developer is enjoying it, too. "Sustainable construction has now become a matter of conviction for me," he says. Industrial hemp is just one of many suitable renewable building materials – along with wood, straw, or mushrooms, for example. What's new is that hemp houses no longer look like a dropout hut, Tiny House, or eco-village on the outside. This house looks like an ordinary wooden house and does not stand out much in a normal housing development. There are some advantages. You build brick by brick – the masons and solid builders wouldn't have to learn entirely new techniques – though there are alternative construction methods using hemp and clay or timber frame construction. At the end of the house's use, perhaps after 70 or 100 years, there is no waste. The hemp and lime portion of the house can, in principle, be composted.The ideal crop The climate balance is good. A house made of hemp blocks, like a wooden house, binds carbon dioxide (CO2) as long as the house stands, and the material does not burn or rot. Climate researchers have been favoring wood as an ecologically compatible, regionally available building material for some time. It could even help countries achieve their 1.5-degree climate target, international researchers calculated in a study published in Nature in 2020. Yet wood is already very expensive today – partly because of the rapid increase in demand. And it is questionable whether the resources of forests and plantations can suffice for a timber construction offensive on a global scale. In contrast, new construction raw materials are growing faster and more in the field. Anything that contains a high proportion of cellulose is suitable for construction.Sustainable construction has now become a matter of conviction for me European farmers harvest more than six tons of hemp straw per hectare. Polish researchers discovered that one ton of dry matter "stores" one to just under three tons of CO2. Hemp shives could be used particularly well as a building material "as a loosely filled thermal insulation material in timber frame constructions," writes the group led by Piotr Kosinski of the University of Olsztyn. A resulting increase in demand for hemp could also spice up agriculture ecologically because it can be usefully integrated into crop rotations. Its deep roots loosen the soil and increase its ability to absorb water. And winter varieties are also available. Other ecological advantages for cultivation include low fertilizer and pesticide consumption. History of hemp But wasn't hemp a drug? Commercial hemp – unlike cannabis – contains very little to no THC, the active ingredient that produces intoxication. In Europe, it has a much older tradition as a textile fiber for cloth and sail making. And the first industrial use of hemp, beyond the textile processing practiced for centuries, dates back to entrepreneurs in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Almost 100 years ago, the Kentucky-Illinois Hemp Company invested in industrial hemp processing – including, for example, into bioplastics. Henry Ford had his automotive engineers experiment with bioplastics that contained hemp fiber as well as soy, grain, and wood cellulose. Ford presented the prototype of the "soy car" in 1941. It contained a proportion of hemp fiber, was lightweight and economical. However, houses made of hemp did not exist at that time, but houses made of straw certainly did. Then, however, hemp fell out of use. In the post-war decades, under the influence of drug-addicted youth cultures, America and Germany banned all cultivation of "marijuana", including industrial hemp plants. And suddenly there was an end to soy cars and hemp textiles. Interest also waned because concrete, steel, and other materials, such as cotton from Asia, were cheap and plentiful. In the meantime, there is a worldwide shortage of building materials. The fact that hemp is being rediscovered for building is also due to new findings in building materials research: mixed with lime, the material continues to harden for years after construction. This is why the artificial word "hempcrete" was formed in English – for hemp ("hemp") and concrete ("concrete"). The hempcrete blocks are based on cellulose-containing residual materials from the fiber processing of industrial hemp, the shives. They are mixed with lime as a binder. Hemp lime is available as building blocks, but also as insulation boards or as insulating plaster. The building contractor Christian Eiskamp chose the brick form so as not to shock his employees. Most of them are bricklayers. Rising demand but low cultivation A brick of hemp used for insulation in constructions. Wikimedia CommonsBuilding from algae Another option is to mix concrete with hemp. This gives "higher flexural strength, lower density, lower thermal conductivity, higher flexibility, better durability and resistance to sulfate attack," as Indian scientists summarize in a recent review paper. Most interesting in this is the significantly improved insulating value. Just one percent hemp content in concrete reduces thermal conductivity by one-third compared with pure concrete, the study found. This does not mean that there are no "sustainable" alternatives that have at least as good properties. "Classic" facade insulation made from recycled materials, for example: a 2016 French study found an insulating material made from recycled PET bottles superior to hemp in terms of the building's energy requirements, electricity consumption and living comfort. Possibly even more interesting seems to be the numerous projects around the world to turn concrete from a climate problem into a store of renewable carbon. The University of Colorado is relying on microalgae, so-called coccosphaerales, which produce calcium carbonate from sunlight and CO2. "We envision a future where building with this cement will heal the planet," says Wil Srubar, an engineering professor at Boulder. Among other things, it is unclear how much material will be available and at what price.However, hemp houses already exist. In the Netherlands, a company entered the market in 2018 with the first prefabricated house made of hemp. In France, the municipality of Croissy-Beaubourg near Paris had what is said to be the first municipal building in France to be built from hemp stones, a sports hall, in 2021. The Belgian hemp brick manufacturer Isohemp recently opened a second production line due to high demand. The company wants to produce an additional five million hemp bricks a year there.There is a worldwide shortage of building materials But how much hemp is available as a raw material in Europe? Farmers have so far reacted sluggishly to the rising demand, and cultivation is still low. According to Eurostat, the area under cultivation of industrial cannabis rose from around 20,000 hectares in 2015 to 36,000 hectares in 2020. The amount of raw material cannot simply be multiplied in this way, especially since grain cultivation is once again taking priority in agriculture. The German-speaking hemp farming community is small and alternative. Similar to the early years of organic farming, there are recognizable cultural hopes associated with this movement. They aim for a more cooperative, artisanal, and regionally networked construction industry. After all, it is still unclear how the ecological balance sheet would develop if the building material one day came from Morocco instead of Germany, Poland, or Belgium. There, in the Rif mountains, which are ideally suited to the climate, farmers would certainly like to grow more building material hemp than drug hemp – at least if the prices were right.

Hemp House in Bellingham, Washington after the hampcrete is cast.

The finished house doesn't look like hemp on the outside. It's clad in wood, with a porch and a green roof, like something out of a Pippi Longstocking movie. The construction does not work without concrete, but the material is only in the base plate and the supporting frame. Similar to half-timbered construction, this "skeleton" is lined, in this case with bricks made of pressed hemp straw bonded with lime mortar. The construction costs are about 15% higher compared to solid construction with the same equipment.

Since the house was completed, more than a thousand interested people have visited it. IN June, more than 700 people came to an "open weekend" alone. The next project will be a hemp eco-settlement with small residential units, a community room, car sharing and lawn mower sharing. Slowly, the developer is enjoying it, too. "Sustainable construction has now become a matter of conviction for me," he says.

Industrial hemp is just one of many suitable renewable building materials – along with wood, straw, or mushrooms, for example. What's new is that hemp houses no longer look like a dropout hut, Tiny House, or eco-village on the outside. This house looks like an ordinary wooden house and does not stand out much in a normal housing development.

There are some advantages. You build brick by brick – the masons and solid builders wouldn't have to learn entirely new techniques – though there are alternative construction methods using hemp and clay or timber frame construction. At the end of the house's use, perhaps after 70 or 100 years, there is no waste. The hemp and lime portion of the house can, in principle, be composted.

The climate balance is good. A house made of hemp blocks, like a wooden house, binds carbon dioxide (CO2) as long as the house stands, and the material does not burn or rot. Climate researchers have been favoring wood as an ecologically compatible, regionally available building material for some time. It could even help countries achieve their 1.5-degree climate target, international researchers calculated in a study published in Nature in 2020.

Yet wood is already very expensive today – partly because of the rapid increase in demand. And it is questionable whether the resources of forests and plantations can suffice for a timber construction offensive on a global scale. In contrast, new construction raw materials are growing faster and more in the field. Anything that contains a high proportion of cellulose is suitable for construction.

European farmers harvest more than six tons of hemp straw per hectare. Polish researchers discovered that one ton of dry matter "stores" one to just under three tons of CO2. Hemp shives could be used particularly well as a building material "as a loosely filled thermal insulation material in timber frame constructions," writes the group led by Piotr Kosinski of the University of Olsztyn. A resulting increase in demand for hemp could also spice up agriculture ecologically because it can be usefully integrated into crop rotations. Its deep roots loosen the soil and increase its ability to absorb water. And winter varieties are also available.

Other ecological advantages for cultivation include low fertilizer and pesticide consumption.

But wasn't hemp a drug? Commercial hemp – unlike cannabis – contains very little to no THC, the active ingredient that produces intoxication. In Europe, it has a much older tradition as a textile fiber for cloth and sail making. And the first industrial use of hemp, beyond the textile processing practiced for centuries, dates back to entrepreneurs in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Almost 100 years ago, the Kentucky-Illinois Hemp Company invested in industrial hemp processing – including, for example, into bioplastics.

Henry Ford had his automotive engineers experiment with bioplastics that contained hemp fiber as well as soy, grain, and wood cellulose. Ford presented the prototype of the "soy car" in 1941. It contained a proportion of hemp fiber, was lightweight and economical. However, houses made of hemp did not exist at that time, but houses made of straw certainly did.

Then, however, hemp fell out of use. In the post-war decades, under the influence of drug-addicted youth cultures, America and Germany banned all cultivation of "marijuana", including industrial hemp plants. And suddenly there was an end to soy cars and hemp textiles. Interest also waned because concrete, steel, and other materials, such as cotton from Asia, were cheap and plentiful.

In the meantime, there is a worldwide shortage of building materials. The fact that hemp is being rediscovered for building is also due to new findings in building materials research: mixed with lime, the material continues to harden for years after construction. This is why the artificial word "hempcrete" was formed in English – for hemp ("hemp") and concrete ("concrete").

The hempcrete blocks are based on cellulose-containing residual materials from the fiber processing of industrial hemp, the shives. They are mixed with lime as a binder. Hemp lime is available as building blocks, but also as insulation boards or as insulating plaster. The building contractor Christian Eiskamp chose the brick form so as not to shock his employees. Most of them are bricklayers.

A brick of hemp used for insulation in constructions.

Another option is to mix concrete with hemp. This gives "higher flexural strength, lower density, lower thermal conductivity, higher flexibility, better durability and resistance to sulfate attack," as Indian scientists summarize in a recent review paper. Most interesting in this is the significantly improved insulating value. Just one percent hemp content in concrete reduces thermal conductivity by one-third compared with pure concrete, the study found.

This does not mean that there are no "sustainable" alternatives that have at least as good properties. "Classic" facade insulation made from recycled materials, for example: a 2016 French study found an insulating material made from recycled PET bottles superior to hemp in terms of the building's energy requirements, electricity consumption and living comfort. Possibly even more interesting seems to be the numerous projects around the world to turn concrete from a climate problem into a store of renewable carbon.

The University of Colorado is relying on microalgae, so-called coccosphaerales, which produce calcium carbonate from sunlight and CO2. "We envision a future where building with this cement will heal the planet," says Wil Srubar, an engineering professor at Boulder. Among other things, it is unclear how much material will be available and at what price.

However, hemp houses already exist. In the Netherlands, a company entered the market in 2018 with the first prefabricated house made of hemp. In France, the municipality of Croissy-Beaubourg near Paris had what is said to be the first municipal building in France to be built from hemp stones, a sports hall, in 2021. The Belgian hemp brick manufacturer Isohemp recently opened a second production line due to high demand. The company wants to produce an additional five million hemp bricks a year there.

But how much hemp is available as a raw material in Europe? Farmers have so far reacted sluggishly to the rising demand, and cultivation is still low. According to Eurostat, the area under cultivation of industrial cannabis rose from around 20,000 hectares in 2015 to 36,000 hectares in 2020. The amount of raw material cannot simply be multiplied in this way, especially since grain cultivation is once again taking priority in agriculture.

The German-speaking hemp farming community is small and alternative. Similar to the early years of organic farming, there are recognizable cultural hopes associated with this movement. They aim for a more cooperative, artisanal, and regionally networked construction industry.

After all, it is still unclear how the ecological balance sheet would develop if the building material one day came from Morocco instead of Germany, Poland, or Belgium. There, in the Rif mountains, which are ideally suited to the climate, farmers would certainly like to grow more building material hemp than drug hemp – at least if the prices were right.

Hemp has long had more uses than getting high. The plant is now increasingly being used in the construction of houses, with huge benefits for the climate. The only issue is growing enough to meet surging demand.

Blocks of hemp used for house construction.

OLDENBURG — To be clear: Nobody smoked weed at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first semi-detached house made of hemp in Lower Saxony in northwest Germany. This rite-of-passage ceremony to celebrate the completion of the building served nothing more than cold beer.

Christian Eiskamp had spent decades building single-family houses in the sprawling housing complexes in the south of Oldenburg, a city of just over 100,000 people. Then he had the intuition that the heyday of concrete could be coming to an end because of its poor impact on the climate. Searching on Google, he found hemp as an alternative building material.

"It was an eye-opener for me to read that the concrete industry is responsible for 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions," Eiskamp says.

In his search for alternatives, he'D invited a consultant who calls himself a "hemp engineer" and began building the duplex to rent out later, before such hemp houses became marketed more widely.

Sustainable construction Hemp House in Bellingham, Washington after the hampcrete is cast. Wikimedia CommonsOut of a Pippi Longstocking movie The finished house doesn't look like hemp on the outside. It's clad in wood, with a porch and a green roof, like something out of a Pippi Longstocking movie. The construction does not work without concrete, but the material is only in the base plate and the supporting frame. Similar to half-timbered construction, this "skeleton" is lined, in this case with bricks made of pressed hemp straw bonded with lime mortar. The construction costs are about 15% higher compared to solid construction with the same equipment. Since the house was completed, more than a thousand interested people have visited it. IN June, more than 700 people came to an "open weekend" alone. The next project will be a hemp eco-settlement with small residential units, a community room, car sharing and lawn mower sharing. Slowly, the developer is enjoying it, too. "Sustainable construction has now become a matter of conviction for me," he says. Industrial hemp is just one of many suitable renewable building materials – along with wood, straw, or mushrooms, for example. What's new is that hemp houses no longer look like a dropout hut, Tiny House, or eco-village on the outside. This house looks like an ordinary wooden house and does not stand out much in a normal housing development. There are some advantages. You build brick by brick – the masons and solid builders wouldn't have to learn entirely new techniques – though there are alternative construction methods using hemp and clay or timber frame construction. At the end of the house's use, perhaps after 70 or 100 years, there is no waste. The hemp and lime portion of the house can, in principle, be composted.The ideal crop The climate balance is good. A house made of hemp blocks, like a wooden house, binds carbon dioxide (CO2) as long as the house stands, and the material does not burn or rot. Climate researchers have been favoring wood as an ecologically compatible, regionally available building material for some time. It could even help countries achieve their 1.5-degree climate target, international researchers calculated in a study published in Nature in 2020. Yet wood is already very expensive today – partly because of the rapid increase in demand. And it is questionable whether the resources of forests and plantations can suffice for a timber construction offensive on a global scale. In contrast, new construction raw materials are growing faster and more in the field. Anything that contains a high proportion of cellulose is suitable for construction.Sustainable construction has now become a matter of conviction for me European farmers harvest more than six tons of hemp straw per hectare. Polish researchers discovered that one ton of dry matter "stores" one to just under three tons of CO2. Hemp shives could be used particularly well as a building material "as a loosely filled thermal insulation material in timber frame constructions," writes the group led by Piotr Kosinski of the University of Olsztyn. A resulting increase in demand for hemp could also spice up agriculture ecologically because it can be usefully integrated into crop rotations. Its deep roots loosen the soil and increase its ability to absorb water. And winter varieties are also available. Other ecological advantages for cultivation include low fertilizer and pesticide consumption. History of hemp But wasn't hemp a drug? Commercial hemp – unlike cannabis – contains very little to no THC, the active ingredient that produces intoxication. In Europe, it has a much older tradition as a textile fiber for cloth and sail making. And the first industrial use of hemp, beyond the textile processing practiced for centuries, dates back to entrepreneurs in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Almost 100 years ago, the Kentucky-Illinois Hemp Company invested in industrial hemp processing – including, for example, into bioplastics. Henry Ford had his automotive engineers experiment with bioplastics that contained hemp fiber as well as soy, grain, and wood cellulose. Ford presented the prototype of the "soy car" in 1941. It contained a proportion of hemp fiber, was lightweight and economical. However, houses made of hemp did not exist at that time, but houses made of straw certainly did. Then, however, hemp fell out of use. In the post-war decades, under the influence of drug-addicted youth cultures, America and Germany banned all cultivation of "marijuana", including industrial hemp plants. And suddenly there was an end to soy cars and hemp textiles. Interest also waned because concrete, steel, and other materials, such as cotton from Asia, were cheap and plentiful. In the meantime, there is a worldwide shortage of building materials. The fact that hemp is being rediscovered for building is also due to new findings in building materials research: mixed with lime, the material continues to harden for years after construction. This is why the artificial word "hempcrete" was formed in English – for hemp ("hemp") and concrete ("concrete"). The hempcrete blocks are based on cellulose-containing residual materials from the fiber processing of industrial hemp, the shives. They are mixed with lime as a binder. Hemp lime is available as building blocks, but also as insulation boards or as insulating plaster. The building contractor Christian Eiskamp chose the brick form so as not to shock his employees. Most of them are bricklayers. Rising demand but low cultivation A brick of hemp used for insulation in constructions. Wikimedia CommonsBuilding from algae Another option is to mix concrete with hemp. This gives "higher flexural strength, lower density, lower thermal conductivity, higher flexibility, better durability and resistance to sulfate attack," as Indian scientists summarize in a recent review paper. Most interesting in this is the significantly improved insulating value. Just one percent hemp content in concrete reduces thermal conductivity by one-third compared with pure concrete, the study found. This does not mean that there are no "sustainable" alternatives that have at least as good properties. "Classic" facade insulation made from recycled materials, for example: a 2016 French study found an insulating material made from recycled PET bottles superior to hemp in terms of the building's energy requirements, electricity consumption and living comfort. Possibly even more interesting seems to be the numerous projects around the world to turn concrete from a climate problem into a store of renewable carbon. The University of Colorado is relying on microalgae, so-called coccosphaerales, which produce calcium carbonate from sunlight and CO2. "We envision a future where building with this cement will heal the planet," says Wil Srubar, an engineering professor at Boulder. Among other things, it is unclear how much material will be available and at what price.However, hemp houses already exist. In the Netherlands, a company entered the market in 2018 with the first prefabricated house made of hemp. In France, the municipality of Croissy-Beaubourg near Paris had what is said to be the first municipal building in France to be built from hemp stones, a sports hall, in 2021. The Belgian hemp brick manufacturer Isohemp recently opened a second production line due to high demand. The company wants to produce an additional five million hemp bricks a year there.There is a worldwide shortage of building materials But how much hemp is available as a raw material in Europe? Farmers have so far reacted sluggishly to the rising demand, and cultivation is still low. According to Eurostat, the area under cultivation of industrial cannabis rose from around 20,000 hectares in 2015 to 36,000 hectares in 2020. The amount of raw material cannot simply be multiplied in this way, especially since grain cultivation is once again taking priority in agriculture. The German-speaking hemp farming community is small and alternative. Similar to the early years of organic farming, there are recognizable cultural hopes associated with this movement. They aim for a more cooperative, artisanal, and regionally networked construction industry. After all, it is still unclear how the ecological balance sheet would develop if the building material one day came from Morocco instead of Germany, Poland, or Belgium. There, in the Rif mountains, which are ideally suited to the climate, farmers would certainly like to grow more building material hemp than drug hemp – at least if the prices were right.

Hemp House in Bellingham, Washington after the hampcrete is cast.

The finished house doesn't look like hemp on the outside. It's clad in wood, with a porch and a green roof, like something out of a Pippi Longstocking movie. The construction does not work without concrete, but the material is only in the base plate and the supporting frame. Similar to half-timbered construction, this "skeleton" is lined, in this case with bricks made of pressed hemp straw bonded with lime mortar. The construction costs are about 15% higher compared to solid construction with the same equipment.

Since the house was completed, more than a thousand interested people have visited it. IN June, more than 700 people came to an "open weekend" alone. The next project will be a hemp eco-settlement with small residential units, a community room, car sharing and lawn mower sharing. Slowly, the developer is enjoying it, too. "Sustainable construction has now become a matter of conviction for me," he says.

Industrial hemp is just one of many suitable renewable building materials – along with wood, straw, or mushrooms, for example. What's new is that hemp houses no longer look like a dropout hut, Tiny House, or eco-village on the outside. This house looks like an ordinary wooden house and does not stand out much in a normal housing development.

There are some advantages. You build brick by brick – the masons and solid builders wouldn't have to learn entirely new techniques – though there are alternative construction methods using hemp and clay or timber frame construction. At the end of the house's use, perhaps after 70 or 100 years, there is no waste. The hemp and lime portion of the house can, in principle, be composted.

The climate balance is good. A house made of hemp blocks, like a wooden house, binds carbon dioxide (CO2) as long as the house stands, and the material does not burn or rot. Climate researchers have been favoring wood as an ecologically compatible, regionally available building material for some time. It could even help countries achieve their 1.5-degree climate target, international researchers calculated in a study published in Nature in 2020.

Yet wood is already very expensive today – partly because of the rapid increase in demand. And it is questionable whether the resources of forests and plantations can suffice for a timber construction offensive on a global scale. In contrast, new construction raw materials are growing faster and more in the field. Anything that contains a high proportion of cellulose is suitable for construction.

European farmers harvest more than six tons of hemp straw per hectare. Polish researchers discovered that one ton of dry matter "stores" one to just under three tons of CO2. Hemp shives could be used particularly well as a building material "as a loosely filled thermal insulation material in timber frame constructions," writes the group led by Piotr Kosinski of the University of Olsztyn. A resulting increase in demand for hemp could also spice up agriculture ecologically because it can be usefully integrated into crop rotations. Its deep roots loosen the soil and increase its ability to absorb water. And winter varieties are also available.

Other ecological advantages for cultivation include low fertilizer and pesticide consumption.

But wasn't hemp a drug? Commercial hemp – unlike cannabis – contains very little to no THC, the active ingredient that produces intoxication. In Europe, it has a much older tradition as a textile fiber for cloth and sail making. And the first industrial use of hemp, beyond the textile processing practiced for centuries, dates back to entrepreneurs in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Almost 100 years ago, the Kentucky-Illinois Hemp Company invested in industrial hemp processing – including, for example, into bioplastics.

Henry Ford had his automotive engineers experiment with bioplastics that contained hemp fiber as well as soy, grain, and wood cellulose. Ford presented the prototype of the "soy car" in 1941. It contained a proportion of hemp fiber, was lightweight and economical. However, houses made of hemp did not exist at that time, but houses made of straw certainly did.

Then, however, hemp fell out of use. In the post-war decades, under the influence of drug-addicted youth cultures, America and Germany banned all cultivation of "marijuana", including industrial hemp plants. And suddenly there was an end to soy cars and hemp textiles. Interest also waned because concrete, steel, and other materials, such as cotton from Asia, were cheap and plentiful.

In the meantime, there is a worldwide shortage of building materials. The fact that hemp is being rediscovered for building is also due to new findings in building materials research: mixed with lime, the material continues to harden for years after construction. This is why the artificial word "hempcrete" was formed in English – for hemp ("hemp") and concrete ("concrete").

The hempcrete blocks are based on cellulose-containing residual materials from the fiber processing of industrial hemp, the shives. They are mixed with lime as a binder. Hemp lime is available as building blocks, but also as insulation boards or as insulating plaster. The building contractor Christian Eiskamp chose the brick form so as not to shock his employees. Most of them are bricklayers.

A brick of hemp used for insulation in constructions.

Another option is to mix concrete with hemp. This gives "higher flexural strength, lower density, lower thermal conductivity, higher flexibility, better durability and resistance to sulfate attack," as Indian scientists summarize in a recent review paper. Most interesting in this is the significantly improved insulating value. Just one percent hemp content in concrete reduces thermal conductivity by one-third compared with pure concrete, the study found.

This does not mean that there are no "sustainable" alternatives that have at least as good properties. "Classic" facade insulation made from recycled materials, for example: a 2016 French study found an insulating material made from recycled PET bottles superior to hemp in terms of the building's energy requirements, electricity consumption and living comfort. Possibly even more interesting seems to be the numerous projects around the world to turn concrete from a climate problem into a store of renewable carbon.

The University of Colorado is relying on microalgae, so-called coccosphaerales, which produce calcium carbonate from sunlight and CO2. "We envision a future where building with this cement will heal the planet," says Wil Srubar, an engineering professor at Boulder. Among other things, it is unclear how much material will be available and at what price.

However, hemp houses already exist. In the Netherlands, a company entered the market in 2018 with the first prefabricated house made of hemp. In France, the municipality of Croissy-Beaubourg near Paris had what is said to be the first municipal building in France to be built from hemp stones, a sports hall, in 2021. The Belgian hemp brick manufacturer Isohemp recently opened a second production line due to high demand. The company wants to produce an additional five million hemp bricks a year there.

But how much hemp is available as a raw material in Europe? Farmers have so far reacted sluggishly to the rising demand, and cultivation is still low. According to Eurostat, the area under cultivation of industrial cannabis rose from around 20,000 hectares in 2015 to 36,000 hectares in 2020. The amount of raw material cannot simply be multiplied in this way, especially since grain cultivation is once again taking priority in agriculture.

The German-speaking hemp farming community is small and alternative. Similar to the early years of organic farming, there are recognizable cultural hopes associated with this movement. They aim for a more cooperative, artisanal, and regionally networked construction industry.

After all, it is still unclear how the ecological balance sheet would develop if the building material one day came from Morocco instead of Germany, Poland, or Belgium. There, in the Rif mountains, which are ideally suited to the climate, farmers would certainly like to grow more building material hemp than drug hemp – at least if the prices were right.

in the face of Russia's stranglehold over supplies, the European Commission has proposed support packages and price caps. But across Europe, fears about the cost of living are spreading – and with it, doubts about support for Ukraine.

Protesters on Thursday in the German state of Thuringia carried Russian flags and signs: 'First our country! Life must be affordable.'

In her State of the Union address on September 14, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, issued an urgent appeal for solidarity between EU member states in tackling the energy crisis, and towards Ukraine. Von der Leyen need only look out her window to see that tensions are growing in capital cities across Europe due to the sharp rise in energy prices.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage. Sign up to our free daily newsletter.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

In the Czech Republic, people are already taking to the streets, while opposition politicians elsewhere are looking to score points — and some countries' support for Ukraine may start to buckle.

With winter approaching, Europe is facing a true test of both its mettle, and imagination.

Will we pull through? An overview of the situation in different European countries offers some insight into the troubles faced by the continent.

Of all countries, Poland – which is rich in coal and relies on it for more than 70% of its energy – is facing a shortage. Its power stations run on coal mainly mined in the south of the country, but until recently the over 3.5 million households that rely on coal ovens imported most of their fuel from Russia.

That is no longer the case, and as coal becomes scarcer, its price is skyrocketing – now sitting at around 300% compared to last year. Add to that an inflation rate of 16.1% in August, and Poles are suffering. Despite a one-off state grant for households that use coal heating, many are fearing a cold winter.

As a result, support for the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) is waning: Surveys show it at 32%, only slightly ahead of the largest opposition-party alliance.

But so far there have been no mass protests against the government’s approach. The general population and the major opposition parties are largely in favor of strict sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine.

In the neighboring Czech Republic, things look very different.

According to police estimates, Sunday 11 September saw 70,000 people take to the streets of Prague to protest against high energy costs and call for an end to sanctions against Russia. There were lots of Eurosceptic and anti-NATO voices among the crowd, and Prime Minister Petr Fiala accused the organisers of “pro-Russian sympathies”. In his address to the nation, he said that Russia wanted to “destroy peaceful society” in the Czech Republic.

Moscow’s main weapon is energy — and Prague is particularly susceptible. Although the Czech Republic is one of the largest net electricity exporters in Europe, with two nuclear power plants and significant investment in renewable energy, it has also been importing gas from Russia for a long time.

This dependence on the Russian state-owned energy corporation Gazprom is probably the Fiala government’s biggest concern. And inflation here is even higher than in Poland: in July it was at 17.2%. Mass protests have already been announced for October.

The outlook for Austrian households is grim: The prices of electricity, gas and water are all rising, although at this stage it’s not clear whether this will mean a moderate increase or a tripling of the price. What is clear is that gas tanks are only being filled to 70% capacity and inflation is sitting at around 10%.

All this is playing out against the background of the campaign for October's presidential elections contested by the incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen (formerly of the Green Party) and the candidate from the right-wing nationalist pro-Russian Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Walter Rosenkranz.

Austria likes to present itself as an island of neutrality. Solidarity with Ukraine and unity with EU decisions: yes. But dissenting voices are growing louder, with three regional FPÖ leaders recently questioning whether sanctions against Russia are achieving their aim. The mood is similar in the Federation of Austrian Industries and the Chamber of Commerce, dominated by the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).

But the government is standing by the sanctions. According to APA/ATV-“Österreich-Trend”, public opinion is split: 26% are in favor of abolishing all sanctions, while 12% want to relax them. Then there are 39% who want the current sanctions to remain in place, and 20% who are in favor of making them stricter. There is at least one small chink of light: The price of electricity is going to be capped for up to 80% of last year’s average consumption.

Giorgia Meloni is favored to be Italy's next prime minister

Pasquale Gargano/Pacific Press via ZUMA

Since the earliest days of the war, the Italian people have been divided over sanctions against Russia and supplying weapons to Ukraine.

Italy historically has close ties with Russia, and the country has a deep-rooted pacifism shaped by the Catholic Church. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, politicians have been playing on these sympathies, and now only 43% of the population agrees with the statement that sanctions against Russia are the best approach, while 37% are against.

Worries about rising energy costs are a contributing factor. So far the government has mostly managed to protect consumers from extreme price hikes, but many small or energy-intensive businesses are being overwhelmed and were forced to halt production after the summer break, at least temporarily.

So far there have been no major protests, but Sunday's elections will give new hints as to how long this relative peace will be determined and by what measures the future government introduces to face the current issues.

In the Netherlands, dissatisfaction is not limited to farmers protesting the government’s mandate to reduce nitrogen emissions. The consequences of the war in Ukraine are also fraying nerves. According to figures from Trading Economics, the inflation rate in August was 12%. Energy prices are also skyrocketing: According to the Household Energy Price Index, in August electricity costs in Amsterdam rose by 22%. Despite that, support for Ukraine remains high.

According to an IPSOS survey in late August, two in five Dutch people are in favor of boycotting Russian gas, even if that leads to further price hikes. One fifth are against. This rejection of Russian gas is not only due to solidarity; it also has a lot to do with the Netherlands’ lack of dependence on Russia, given that the country has the largest gas field in Europe, in Groningen.

But that doesn’t mean it is insulated from energy troubles. After years of disputes with local residents due to earthquakes caused by the drilling, work at the oil field was set to be put on hold this summer. Because of “volatile geopolitical developments”, Hans Vijlbrief, State Secretary for Bergbau, believes that it won’t be shut down until next year or the year after.

To combat energy price rises, liberal conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government has announced a support package that will see low-income households receiving a one-off payment of 1,300 euros, while VAT on energy is being cut from 21% to 9%.

By introducing energy price caps, France has managed to keep inflation under 6%, the lowest rate in the EU. The government, however, is steeling itself for a “torrid winter” of mass protests, with left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon announcing a “show of force” and a “march against the cost of living”.

According to a recent survey, only one in 20 households will be able to comfortably cover the higher cost of living. Most will have to dip into their savings. 40% of respondents called for the return of the yellow vests movement. Faced with the spectre of renewed protests, the government has been writing blank cheques for months, although this hasn’t succeeded in truly dowsing the ire of the revolution-loving French.

Populist parties on both sides of the political spectrum have already seen historic victories in the parliamentary elections in June, stripping President Emmanuel Macron of his majority. Macron has called for his fellow citizens to prepare for “an end to abundance and carefree living”. Among protesters, calls for a return to abundance have dominated social media, being shared thousands of times online.

Since the start of the war, Switzerland’s position on support for Ukraine has been unique. In line with the country’s stance of “active neutrality”, it adopted the EU sanctions against Russia, but did not allow Swiss-produced weapons to be sent to Ukraine or NATO planes to fly over its airspace.

But Switzerland can’t escape rising energy prices: At the end of August, energy providers announced that electricity prices in 2023 would increase by around 30%, and it could be even more expensive in certain areas. Switzerland’s gas supply could also run low in winter, as the country is completely dependent on imports from neighboring countries.

So far there have been no major protests, and none are expected. Fabian Eberhard, a Swiss investigative journalist and expert on extremism, says, “As is often the case, until there are more dramatic developments in neighboring countries, Switzerland is unlikely to follow suit.”

Thabo Jaiyesimi/SOPA Images via ZUMA

The Brits are naturally a reserved people who don’t often take to the streets. The protest against the Iraq War in 2003 and Brexit in 2016 are two notable exceptions.

Therefore the country has expressed its anger about the rising cost of living in a different way: through strikes. This summer, rail workers and Transport for London staff brought the country and its capital to a standstill for days at a time. In Scotland the rubbish collectors went on strike, while in England it was criminal barristers.

At the Trade Union Congress on September 11, there was talk of coordinated strike action, perhaps even a general strike. This was abandoned after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, as were all other strikes planned to take place during her mourning period.

After her funeral on 19 September, however, the threat of strikes is likely to rear its ugly head once more.

The first Monday in September saw thousands of people take to the streets of Leipzig to protest against high energy prices and government policy. The Left was keen to be seen as the party of “social protest”, although extreme right-wing groups were almost demonstrating.

The situation is complicated – and politically charged. Protests against Russian sanctions and rising costs are no longer confined to major cities in the east. They have spread throughout the former East Germany and beyond.

Something is brewing in the east, warned George Maier (SPD), Minister of the Interior in Thuringia, four weeks ago in an interview with Die Welt. He said that societal factors were “at the heart of the conflict”, and differences between East and West Germany also play a significant role.

That may well be true. While in West Germany, the majority of the population supports the government’s approach to Ukraine, there was never widespread support for weapons and sanctions in the east. That is clear from the demonstrations. “This is not our war,” said one protester in Arnstadt, Thuringia. He was not convinced by the oft-repeated claim in Berlin that Ukrainians are fighting for freedom across the west. And he is not alone.

Many of the protesters are driven by deep-rooted fears that are far more pronounced in the east than in the west. The main beneficiary of their dissatisfaction is not the Left, but the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, which was at least partly responsible for organising the protest.

At an Alternative for Germany rally in Magdeburg in early September, the party’s leader in the state government, Oliver Kirchner, attacked two journalists from the Central German Broadcasting Foundation for their reporting on events.

Tensions are running high and many local and regional politicians are concerned. “The people are telling us that they see no evidence of serious attempts at peace talks, and all the talk is about supplying weapons. The ideologically-driven government needs to respond to the price rises for gas and electricity. Until that support comes into effect, lots of people are facing unemployment and companies are likely to fold,” says Markus Kurze (CDU), member of the state parliament from Burg in Saxony-Anhalt.

in the face of Russia's stranglehold over supplies, the European Commission has proposed support packages and price caps. But across Europe, fears about the cost of living are spreading – and with it, doubts about support for Ukraine.

Many people assume the patriarchy has always been there, but how did it really originate? History shows us that there can be another way.

Society sees friendships as far less important than love and life partnerships. But psychologists warn that the end of a close friendship can leave the "grieving" side in need of therapy.

Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.

Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.

Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.

Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.

There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.

According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.

The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.

So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.

Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.

Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.

Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform via ZUMA Press Wire

Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.

Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.

"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”

In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.

Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.

At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.

Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.

Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.

Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine

Diocesan Archive of Vienna (Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer

Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”

These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.

On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.

Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.