A huge thank-you to everyone who came to Lewes HempEvent at Lewes Town Hall in November, hosted by Plastic Free Lewes. Over 120 people attended the afternoon, which proved to be an inspiring opportunity to explore the solutions to – not just the challenges of –  climate change, taking this one powerful plant as an example.

Daphne Lambert premiered her new short film on hemp and the many roles it can play in our lives, including its ability to absorb four times more carbon than trees. Her film, ‘Hemp – the planet friendly plant’, can be viewed here…

Graham Durrant, one of the UK’s leading experts in building with hempcrete, showed how his firm has been using hemp to construct buildings around the UK. He explained how the carbon-absorbing properties of hemp, alongside other attributes, can help create carbon-negative buildings that effectively take up more carbon than is produced through the construction process.

Meanwhile, Guy Coxall of HempTank, the UK hemp think tank, guided us through the whole history of hemp and the many agricultural, industrial, and economic needs it can fulfil. Perhaps, most exciting of all is the unique role hemp could play in mitigating climate change by harnessing new technologies. You can watch the whole of Guy’s talk here:

You can download Guy Coxall’s full presentation here…

Our speakers showed how, with a bit of imagination, we can think differently about what we grow, how we build our houses, how we make the things we need. And with solutions like hemp, we can do this in a way that works with our planet – not against it.