Who would have thought that hemp can be used for furniture? If not everybody, the people behind Hempniture did.
How did it all start, what’s the story behind your startup?
Since 2014, we are promoting industrial hemp with its benefits, products and producers. People encouraged us to continue our project and also to get involved in the hemp industry. This is how Hempniture was born, furniture made from industrial hemp.
Name three key words that best describe your business
Inclusive. Sustainable. Innovative.
What is your motivation? What gets you from thinking to DOING?
Our motivation is to innovate the hemp industry by inviting it into our homes to offer us support and comfort. Hemp is a multipurpose industrial plant, full of healthy, ecological benefits. One of it is the carbon sequestration in the stem resulted from the cultivation, which represents 7 to 9 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare.
How do you plan to IMPACT the world?
But, most farmers in Romania grow hemp for seeds and incinerate the waste, the primary material of our furniture. The furniture will be made from hemp wood pressed in particleboards, thus stopping the carbon emissions that would have been released by the incineration. Another feature will be the use of zero formaldehyde in the manufacturing process.
A social component of our business will be the employment of young designers and people from disadvantaged groups. And all of these things together offer the consumer a durable, ecological, non toxic, multifunctional, modular designed furniture.
Impact Startup Factory is an incubation program organized by Impact Hub Bucharest, Impact Hub Cluj-Napoca and Impact Hub Zurich, in partnership with the Swiss-Romanian Cooperation. The Social Impact Incubator is a partnership between Impact Hubs in Romania and Impact Hub Zurich to adapt an innovation and entrepreneurship methodology developed in Switzerland for growing Romanian communities through the power of startups designed for profit, people and planet. The initiative will be implemented March 2016 – February 2017 and is co-financed by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union in total value of 73,116.72 CHF.