Variations on the hemp–lime mix - The Hempcrete Topic: Designing and Building with Hemp-lime - page 118

Characteristics of the three binders available in the UK
Proprietary products and testing
There has been much discussion in recent years about the fact that although hempcrete-
specific binders have always been marketed as proprietary products, and so far have been
sold in a limited number of specialist suppliers, the constituent parts are readily available
as existing products on the market. This has included debate in the industry about agreeing
an open-source binder recipe, to enable increased availability of hempcrete binder materi-
als across the marketplace, although at the time of writing this has not yet been achieved.
The main reason for this is fairly obvious: getting a product tested and approved is a costly
process, and anyone investing in the initial costs of this process would be unlikely to get
their money back from an open-source product. Such an open-source binder may come in
future, alongside the eventual establishment of industry-agreed construction standards for