Federal Agency Grants $8.4 Million To Hemp Company To Produce Sustainable Cannabis-Based Alternatives For Building And Car Parts

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $8.4 million to a hemp business working to provide sustainable cannabis-based alternatives for building materials, packaging and automobile parts.

The startup company Hempitecture received the grant from DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), the agency’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory said in a post on Monday. It’s one of 14 companies that were awarded $428 million collectively to support their efforts to promote clean energy manufacturing, focusing on coal communities.

Currently, Hempitecture focuses on producing hemp concrete and insulation, as well as furniture. But it said that the grant money will be used to open up a new facility and expand its offerings, including cannabis materials for automobiles.

Earlier this year, Volkswagen announced that it was teaming up with a German hemp company to produce a cannabis-based leather alternative for its vehicles.

“There’s a huge use of recycled and bio-based textiles by European automotive manufacturers,” Tommy Gibbons, co-founder of Hempitecture, said. “Our plan in Tennessee is to supply American automakers with natural fiber, nonwovens as they seek to reduce their embodied carbon footprint.”

Hempitecture is thrilled to be selected for an award negotiation to bring hemp based insulation products to East Tennessee. Stay tuned for more info! https://t.co/lGNFVM5GdS

— Hempitecture (@hempitecture) October 30, 2024

“It feels like a big affirmation of all the work we’ve done to date,” Gibbons said. “It feels like people are paying attention to how we’re trying to shift the building sector to a more bio-based, circular economy through our products.”

Part of the way the company is working to achieve that goal is by turning hemp dust and fiber short straw that are typically considered waste in the manufacturing process into biomass pellets that can be used as an alternative to coal for heating.

“It really presents a great opportunity for us,” Hempitecture CEO Matthew Mead said in a separate post from the Idaho National Laboratory last month. “Whether it’s another way for us to provide additional products to our growing customer base or simply for us to reach our own sustainability goals.”

.@Hempitecture produces plant-based insulation and acoustic building materials from hemp fibers, and saw the potential to create #biomass pellets or absorbents from waste.

To test and analyze their product, they turned to @INL experts. Read more https://t.co/VX30Lyhou3

— Idaho National Lab (@INL) October 28, 2024

DOE said that Hepitecture’s new facility will be creating 25 full-time jobs “15 percent above the prevailing hourly rate.”

“The transition to America’s clean energy future is being shaped by communities filled with the valuable talent and experience that comes from powering our country for decades,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. “By leveraging the know-how and skillset of the former coal workforce, we are strengthening our national security while helping advance forward-facing technologies and revitalize communities across the nation.”

This isn’t the department’s first partnership with Hempitecture. DOE in 2021 sponsored another project with the company to develop hemp fiber insulation designed to be better for the environment and public health than insulation products. The agency awarded Hempitecture an annual stipend of $90,000 and as much as $200,000 to support research into the insulation product.

In 2022, DOE separately awarded Texas A&M University $3.47 million to support a project to 3D print hempcrete products, with a focus on creating affordable housing.

Meanwhile, as another part of the government’s effort to encourage the use of more environmentally friendly building materials, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in July awarded a nearly $6.2 million grant to a different nonprofit that works with hempcrete, the concrete-like material that’s made with hemp.