The building material you can grow in a paddock

By Earth to Sea News · July 2026

Klara Marosszeky has spent a quarter of a century proving hemp can house us.

Most building materials cost the Earth twice: once when they are made, and again in the energy the finished building burns. Hempcrete turns that story on its head. Mix the woody core of the hemp plant with a lime binder and you get walls that are warm in winter, cool in summer, quietly storing carbon for the life of the building, and breathing all the while, so condensation and mould have nowhere to live. The hemp itself grows in a paddock in a single season.

Australia's pioneer here is Klara Marosszeky, founder of the Australian Hemp Masonry Company, who has worked with industrial hemp since 1999. Her research at the University of NSW developed a hemp lime building material made for Australian conditions, and today her binders are manufactured in Sydney and her hemp comes from Australian farmers, a supply chain you could walk in a day. The science keeps deepening too: her company is partway through a three year university research project measuring how the walls perform, and testing next generation binders that early results suggest could be several times stronger again. Warm homes, healthy air, carbon in the walls and a new crop for farmers. Some good ideas simply grow.