Greg Wilson: HempWood
“We are the only ones in the world doing it. We follow you on Instagram and I listen to your podcast from time to time and it just gives me a little bit of inspiration. So reaching out to you was just a matter of time when we had our act together.
Hemp wood is a derivative of several different technologies that have come up through the years, which started with skriver in the 1970s in Australia.“
- Greg Wilson
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Greg Wilson, who is the founder of HempWood. Greg designed materials from various fibers derived from the controversial hemp wood to promote sustainable building. To those who are not familiar, hemp is related to and often lumped together with cannabis. Check out this episode where Greg talks about the background story of his creation, HempWood, and its parent company, Fibonacci.
“When hemp became legal, Mohawk, the flooring company, was one of our customers for bamboo in the eucalyptus. They said, ‘Hey, tell me about this weed wood thing. Our marketing department wants to talk to you to see if this is actually a viable product in 2014.’ Because there was a lot of hype back then around hemp. So when we did that, they said, `The market for it is over $100 million a year in the United States alone for hardwood flooring made out of weed wood.’”
- Greg Wilson
Getting Ahead of the Curve
Greg continued to research and realized that many people might start chasing the idea about hemp wood so he decided to file a patent which got approved in 2018. They have patents approved for structural beams, boards, blocks and panels.
“The biggest complexity for this is the chemistry of coming up with a plant based glue. Because we use soy protein as the base for the glue, just like PureBond plywood, rather than formaldehyde”
- Greg Wilson
So what is so special about hemp wood? It is the only carbon negative foreign material made in America that has no VOC emissions. Additionally, because of their plant based glue it is a fire retardant product, and it’s 20% harder than hickory. So it outperforms other similar materials.
If you would like to get in touch with Greg Wilson, you can look them up at template.com or call them at 888-338-1235. You can also reach Fibonacci at sales@hemp.com or email Greg directly at GWilson@hempweed.com.
Website: https://hempwood.com
Instagram: @hempwood_