By: Summer Turner
Fort Collins, Colo. — Identified in both The Story of Stuff and Project Drawdown, a crucial part of practicing environmental justice, human health, and sustainability is to source materials in environmentally friendly ways and to encourage the building and distribution of eco-friendly houses and housing materials.

The Fort Collins website states, “Green building is the design, construction, operation, and demolition of buildings in a way that reduces environmental impact, improves the health and well-being of occupants, and increases financial performance.”

Annie Leonard also discusses in The Story of Stuff just how many chemicals everyday housing materials use and the highly toxic materials needed to construct houses today. Recently within the U.S., there has been increasing demand for sustainable materials and the use of alternate materials such as hemp.

The Vegan Design website states this about hemp building materials: “It is environmentally friendly. It uses less energy, releases less carbon dioxide, and has lower levels of volatile organic compounds. Its production also avoids the use of toxic materials like formaldehyde and asbestos, which are often found in concrete.”

Using new and unconventional materials to construct eco-friendly and sustainable housing units has countless benefits. As mentioned above, Fort Collins has been trying to make the switch to supporting more green infrastructure. The Fort Collins website states, “The City has an array of services and programs that can help building owners, facility managers, tenants, and others build green and improve their buildings.”

Project Drawdown also does a very good job of explaining how and what net zero buildings are and how they can be built, along with the many benefits they come with. However, there is no mention of hemp substitutes as they have just recently been gaining popularity in the last few years.

There are socially constructed assumptions made about eco-friendly hemp building materials. The word hemp often makes most people’s minds drift to hemp’s more illegal cousin, marijuana. As these two plants have similar physical appearances, they are often confused to be the same thing, and all of the possible benefits of this amazing plant are frequently lost because of ignorance.

Another large problem that hemp faces is lack of distribution, as just recently, in 2018, it was removed from the FDA-restricted crop list. Ultimately, we need to push for the distribution of more sustainable alternatives such as hemp. As well as continuing to educate people as it is one of the most effective ways to go about changing the negative connotations placed on this versatile, sustainable building alternative.