The world’s longest ‘hemp hotel’ backs up South Africa’s green credentials

With 12 floors, a breathtaking view of Cape Town’s impressive Table Mountain and a minimal ecological footprint, the world’s tallest building made of industrial hemp will soon open its doors in South Africa. Workers in central Cape Town are putting the finishing touches to the 54-room Hemp Hotel, which is due for completion in June.

“Hempcrete” blocks derived from the hemp plant have been used to fill the building’s walls, supported by a concrete and cement structure.

Hemp bricks are becoming increasingly popular in the construction world due to their insulating, fire-resistant and climate-friendly properties.

Used exclusively in Europe for thermal refurbishment of existing buildings, the blocks are carbon negative – meaning their production removes more planet-warming gases from the atmosphere.

“The plant absorbs the carbon, it is put into a block and then stored in a building for 50 years or more,” explains Boshof Müller, director of Afrimat Hemp, a subsidiary of South African construction group Afrimat Hotel, which produced bricks.

“What you’re seeing here is a whole bag full of carbon, quite literally,” says Muller as he pats a bag of mulch into a brick factory on the outskirts of Cape Town, where hemp is made. For this, hemp, water and lime are mixed. block.

The industrial hemp used for Hemp Hotels had to be imported from the UK as South Africa banned local production until last year, when the government started issuing cultivation permits.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has made developing the country’s hemp and cannabis sector an economic priority, saying it could create more than 130,000 jobs.

carbon credits

Afrimat Hemp is now preparing to produce its first block made only from South African hemp.

Wolf Wolf, the 52-year-old hemp hotel architect, sees this as a game changer for making cannabis buildings more widespread in this corner of the world.

“It shouldn’t just be a high-end product,” says Wolf, whose firm is involved in a number of social housing projects in South Africa and neighboring Mozambique.

Yet cost remains an issue.

“Hemp is up to 20 percent more expensive than conventional materials,” says Vihan Becker, a carbon consultant at Afrimat Hemp.

But as the world races to reduce carbon emissions, the firm sees a “huge opportunity” for its green bricks, says Baker.

Carbon credits – usually related to tree-planting permits to protect tropical rainforests that companies buy to offset their emissions – could help make hempcrete blocks more financially palatable, he says.

“We can fund forests, or we can fund someone to live in a cannabis house. It’s the same principle,” Baker says.

According to Afrimat Hemp, the carbon footprint of a 40 square meter (430 sq ft) house made of hemp is three tonnes of CO2 less than that of a conventional building.

“We see it as a lighthouse project,” Müller says of the Hemp Hotel.

“It shows cannabis has its place in the manufacturing sector.”

The Hemp Hotel is rated “the tallest building to incorporate hemp-based materials in the world” by Steve Allin, director of the Ireland-based International Hemp Building Association.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)