As the world grapples with the effects of climate change, accurate carbon accounting has become more important than ever. Carbon accounting refers to the process of measuring and reporting the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere by human activities. It is a key component of efforts to mitigate climate change and transition to a low-carbon economy.
However, accurately accounting for carbon emissions is a complex task that involves tracking emissions from a wide range of sources, including transportation, industry, and agriculture. Traditional carbon-reducing methods, such as planting trees or investing in renewable energy, have proven to be expensive and difficult to scale. Hemp may provide a promising solution to this challenge.
The Role of Hemp in Carbon Sequestration
Hemp is a versatile and fast-growing crop that has been cultivated for thousands of years. It has many uses, including for textiles, paper, and building materials. However, one of the most promising aspects of hemp is its ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
Like other plants, hemp absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere through a process called photosynthesis. However, unlike many other crops, hemp has a high biomass-to-carbon ratio, meaning it is able to sequester more carbon per acre than other crops. This makes it a valuable tool in the fight against climate change.
Benefits of Hemp over Traditional Carbon-Reducing Methods
Hemp has several advantages over traditional carbon-reducing methods. For one, it is a renewable resource that can be cultivated on a large scale. In addition, it can be grown in a variety of environments and requires relatively little water and fertilizer compared to other crops.
Moreover, hemp has a range of other environmental benefits. It can be used to replace environmentally harmful products such as plastics and synthetic fabrics. It also has a deep root system that helps to prevent soil erosion and improve soil quality. This makes hemp a valuable tool not only for reducing carbon emissions, but also for promoting sustainable agriculture.
Hemp’s Potential to Disrupt the Carbon Market
As the world looks to transition to a low-carbon economy, the demand for carbon credits is likely to increase. Carbon credits are a way for companies to offset their carbon emissions by investing in projects that reduce or sequester carbon. However, the carbon market has been plagued by fraud and inconsistency, making it difficult for companies to invest with confidence.
Hemp may provide a solution to this problem. By accurately measuring the amount of carbon sequestered by hemp crops, it may be possible to create a reliable and transparent carbon market that benefits both farmers and investors. This could help to drive mass adoption of hemp as a carbon-reducing tool and create new opportunities for sustainable agriculture.
Overcoming Challenges to Mass Adoption of Hemp
While hemp has many promising benefits, there are still challenges to be overcome before it can be widely adopted as a carbon-reducing tool. For one, there is a lack of infrastructure for processing and distributing hemp products. In addition, hemp cultivation is still restricted in many countries due to its association with marijuana.
However, these challenges are not insurmountable. As more research is conducted on the benefits of hemp, and as regulations around cultivation and processing are relaxed, it is likely that we will see a rapid increase in the adoption of hemp as a carbon-reducing tool.
Conclusion: The Future of Carbon Accounting with Hemp
Hemp has the potential to revolutionize the way we think about carbon accounting and carbon reduction. Its ability to sequester carbon, combined with its many other environmental benefits, make it a valuable tool for promoting sustainable agriculture and reducing carbon emissions.
While there are still challenges to be overcome, the future looks bright for hemp. As more companies and investors recognize the potential of this versatile crop, we may see a rapid increase in its adoption as a carbon-reducing tool. This could not only help to mitigate the effects of climate change, but also create new opportunities for sustainable agriculture and economic growth.
Lorenza Romanese, Managing Director of the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) examines the future of hemp and explains in this vein, what is at stake, as well as looking back at its fascinating history.
Hemp has provided essential raw materials and a high protein and health-promoting food source for centuries, more likely millennia. The hemp plant has been used for construction, paper, textiles, ropes and other applications contributing significantly to the advance in western civilisation. Hemp was grown in Europe and most countries worldwide until the 1930s, after which cultivation got almost eradicated.
Since the end of the 20th century, hemp is making a comeback and is emerging as one of the most rapidly growing agricultural and industrial markets that have emerged for decades.
To clarify, we are talking about “hemp” (Cannabis sativa L.), which is authorised under the EU’s Common Catalogue of Varieties of Agricultural Plant species (Reg. 1308/2013) and contains less than 0,2% of THC, which means it is not psychoactive.
The world is facing enormous challenges – how can we transition from high carbon to a low carbon economy? To achieve this, hemp has a valuable contribution to play and offers economically viable solutions to help address some of the major challenges our societies currently face, including pollution, carbon emissions, plastics waste, world hunger, people’s health, lack of jobs and rural underdevelopment.
What are the key benefits of hemp?
The production of Hemp is carbon negative, which means it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere during its growth than is emitted by the equipment used to harvest, process and transport it.
It is 10,000+ environmentally responsible industrial and consumer applications including bioplastics, composites, construction materials, high protein foods and beverages, health-promoting food supplements, textiles, paper products, biofuel, graphene substitutes.
It gives major environmental benefits. Significant carbon sequestration, enhanced biodiversity and a late season food source for bees, land reclamation and phytoremediation.
Also, hemp can be a profitable cash crop for farmers when permitted to utilise the whole plant.
What are the barriers to growth?
Almost 60 years ago, the hemp plant, which was widely used as food for centuries, was erroneously designated alongside the cannabis (marijuana) flower as a narcotic substance in the UN Single Convention. This has caused a lot of confusion as cultivation of cannabis plants for industrial purposes is clearly exempted from the scope of international control because the industrial hemp sector has been severely restricted in terms of onerous licensing procedures and unclear and complex European and national regulations dealing with hemp-derived food products.
Hemp foods and drinks from flowers leaves and extracts re-emerged in the 1990s. In response to the introduction of the Novel Food catalogue in 1997, the hemp industry collated data about the volume of sales and product types which use hemp flowers and leaves and submitted it as requested. In 1998, the hemp industry received written confirmation from the EU (PAFF Standing Committee) that: “it was decided that foods containing parts of the hemp plant do not fall under the EU Regulation EC258/97 on Novel Foods and Novel Food ingredients.” The second letter from PAFF confirmed hemp flowers and leaves are food ingredients.
Hemp naturally, abundantly contains cannabinoids, is best known as cannabidiol (CBD). In the 21st century, awareness is rapidly increasing that consuming healthy foods and supplements can be an important factor for our overall health and wellbeing. This prompted the introduction of hemp extracts in food supplements, commonly known as CBD oils. The reason hemp foods is so important to our health is that all humans and vertebrates have an important physiological system, the endocannabinoid system (ECS). The ECS fulfils a vital role and aids homeostasis. Whilst our body produces its own, so-called endocannabinoids, this is not necessarily sufficient and we can maintain and support this important physiological system by consuming phytocannabinoids, as we used to do for millennia.
Hemp flowers, leaves and extracts are a traditional food
Historical records show that naturally rich in CBD/cannabinoids hemp oils, flowers, leaves and hemp extracts were widely consumed. It was an integral part of our European diet.
During the last three years, the popularity of CBD containing food supplements prompted the PAFF committee to revisit the permitted consumption of hemp products and on 20th January 2019, the same committee that previously acknowledged in writing to the hemp industry 20 years earlier, that hemp flowers and leaves is a food now changed their minds and changed the Novel Food catalogue only permitting seeds for food use. Overnight the legitimate hemp foods industry was declared novel, meaning there is no history of consumption prior to May 1997.
In response, EIHA has prepared pieces of strong, extensive evidence that hemp cannabinoids/CBD have been consumed in Europe for centuries (insert a link to the evidence). One of the oldest cookbooks in the world, De Honesta et Voluptate (1475) lists a recipe on how to make modern-day CBD oil, medieval monks ate hemp soup, an Italian recipe (1887) shows how to make hemp flower tortellini, a Polish cookbook lists hemp as a vegetable, the Maltos-Cannabis Hemp Extract drink won a prize at the World Exhibition in Antwerp in 1894 and more. This evidence clearly shows that it is disingenuous to argue that leaves and flowers in food are novel today.
De Honesta et Voluptate (1475)
Why is the use of the hemp flower and leaves so important for the entire hemp industry?
The hemp flower and the leaves are the most profitable part of the plant. If the hemp sector is only allowed to use the seeds and stalks, alongside onerous licensing procedures, this is simply not sufficiently financially viable and undermines investment into R&D and the development of large- scale, next generation, environmentally responsible industrial and consumer products. The recent rewording of the Novel Food catalogue, therefore, threatens the entire European hemp industry as the process is expensive and a novel food application takes several years to assess.
Hemp field
Due to the fact that the hemp industry received written confirmation from the EU (PAFF Standing Committee) in 1998 that hemp flowers/leaves are permitted for food use and the hemp industry can provide ample and substantial evidence that naturally occurring CBD has been in the human food chain for millennia, we request that our extensive evidence is considered and that the novel food catalogue is reworded, permitting hemp foods containing cannabinoids/CBD up to levels that are naturally present in the plant (which was the status in 2018). This means that CBD containing food supplements contain no more than we would naturally consume if eating traditional hemp foods.
So, what is at stake?
The Hemp plant is capable of helping to solve some of the core issues we face:
Foods and supplements (seeds/flowers/leaves) maintain and support our health.
The stalk provides zero carbon raw materials ideal for the next generation of environmentally responsible applications, helping mitigate the environmental emergency.
The hemp industry has a real opportunity to play a leading role in the development and expansion of a low carbon, environmentally responsible industry, bringing a new ‘cash-crop’ to European agriculture and creating jobs across the entire supply chain.
For hemp to be a viable cash crop for our farmers and processors, they need to be empowered to utilise the whole plant.
EIHA and its members offer our extensive knowledge and expertise to help establish a framework permitting the use of the whole plant that satisfies both regulatory agencies and industry.
“CBD has been found to be generally well tolerated with a good safety profile.” Excerpts from a letter of WHO Director General to Secretary-General of the United Nations, July 23, 2018
“The Science Museum’s three-storey building is constructed using a hemp-lime envelope and was so effective that they switched off all heating, cooling and humidity control for over a year, maintaining steadier conditions than in their traditionally equipped stores, reducing emissions while saving a huge amount of energy.” Dr Mike Lawrence is Director of the University of Bath’s new research facility, the Building Research Park
“It has been calculated that the serial implementation of the lightweight biomaterials on the high-volume vehicles will deliver a reduction of 40,000 tons of CO2 emissions and the ability to drive an additional 325 million kilometres with the same quantity of fuel.” Source: Autocar Pro Newsdesk 3/2018.
Hemp can clean contaminated soil and there has been countless articles to extol the various attributes of the hemp plant. This is going to be another one with more detail. Not only can hemp fiber can be used to create anything from clothing and paper to concrete bricks, but hemp plants also possess the remarkable ability to pull foreign contaminants and heavy metals out of polluted soil, through a process called phytoremediation.
HYPERACCUMULATORS
Certain plants, known as hyperaccumulators, have the capacity to absorb metals and other toxins from soil by metabolizing it through their roots, where it is then transferred and stored in their stems and leaves; these plants are also able to degrade or render certain contaminants harmless.
Hyperaccumulators can have multiple applications because crops that have been used to phytoextract metals can afterwards be harvested for the metal that has been accrued, with a method that is known as “phytomining”. It is thought that certain plants develop this ability as a natural defense against herbivores. Some well known hyperaccumulators are sunflowers and mustard plants; however, hemp is known to be one of the best plants for phytoremediation, as it is particularly suited for tolerating heavy metals.
HEMP PLANTED NEXT TO A NUCLEAR PLANT
After the infamous reactor explosion at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in 1986 caused numerous toxic compounds to be projected into the surrounding area, farmers close to the blast zone were understandably worried about what impact the radioactive particles would have on the soil. In an attempt to clean out the toxic materials and reduce further dispersion of radionuclide, different hyperaccumulators were planted, most notably hemp.
While this solution was innovative at the time, it did present a new set of problems in terms of how to dispose of the radioactive crops, including how to harvest and transport them without risking the threat of further contamination.
CLEANING CONTAMINATED SOIL
In 2008, an Italian farmer discovered that his land had been contaminated with dioxin, a toxic chemical that had been leaking from a large steel plant that was nearby. The government had detected dioxin in his livestock, and so he was forced to slaughter his entire herd of 600 sheep. In order to save his land, he came up with the idea to use hemp crops for phytoremediation, in order that they might leach the toxic chemicals out of the soil. Although the process is time consuming, an added benefit is that the phytoextracted crops can be later be burned as biofuel; providing an easy, renewable fuel resource.
HEMP PHYTOREMEDIATION IS CRUCIAL
The most important thing to understand about hemp is that because it is such a proficient hyperaccumulator, it is extremely important to research CBD products and determine where the hemp has been sourced. The quality of the soil ultimately determines the quality of the hemp, more so than most other crops — hemp will suck up all of the bad stuff, and this will also be in whatever product its extract is used for. This is particularly crucial with regard to hemp cultivation in the United States; as restrictions on growing hemp have only recently been lifted and farmers are still learning how to grow it, nor can they guarantee the condition of the soil.
Conversely, hemp that has been growing in the same fields for generations will likely have clean soil, because all of the harmful metals and contaminants will have been removed over time.
The more that is understood about the legalities of hemp and the plant itself, the more evident it becomes that it truly is one of the most versatile plants in human history.
