In 2014, Tarun Jami an INK Fellow 2018, and a PhD. Scholar (Civil Engineering) of AcSIR at CSIR-Central Building Research Institute (CSIR-CBRI), Roorkee and RMIT University, Australia, in his final year of civil engineering, he discovered Hempcrete, a cannabis-based building material, and founded GreenJams, an award-winning CleanTech firm in the Indian state of Uttarakhand that is creating a beautiful carbon-neutral built environment via material innovation. Its mission is to provide products and services that enable our customers to lead a climate-positive lifestyle. To reduce the huge carbon footprint of the built environment and construction sector, the business developed Agrocrete, a carbon-negative building material composed of agricultural leftovers. The group is also working to address the massive impact of agricultural residue burning, which costs the country around 2 lakh crores in medical bills.
GreenJams invented Hempcrete, an innovative construction material made from hemp stalks, in India. Their achievements include being named to Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 list for 2019, winning the Clean Energy Challenge, and being named Action for India’s Best Social Enterprise for 2019. The three products they make are Agrocrete, a construction material created from agricultural leftovers, and industrial waste. BINDR is a low-carbon Portland cement substitute derived from industrial waste. HempBloc technology is the strongest in the world. BINDR and hemp stalks were used to create this piece.
Tarun came across how construction materials cause 45 per cent of the pollution, which destroys in the name of construction. The cause wanted a long-term functioning answer which became ‘the happiest accident’, as he quotes. He wanted a solution rather than a compromise’ for this issue. GreenJams has collected a stubble worth 100 acres, twice what was gained earlier. “This financial year has been fantastic in the amount of stubble received and customers,” says Taun about his organisation’s progress this year. The organisation has now got its plants in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The firm is ‘thinking of expanding’ to Punjab and Haryana, which will be more like franchises that will make the products by themselves. They could make a manufacturing unit in less than 60% of the time and 60% of the reduced cost, which became a reason for the customers to buy the product.
The thought that money is a “great motivator” is a reason stubble gathering is easier, which was ‘validation of waste’ which makes it easier for the farmers to make them ‘sell the stubble’. The reason employers take the product is that they are used for faster work completion and the blocks are said to be stronger. When it was asked about the HempCrete blocks replacing convectional ones, he said that;” everything has its place… it is going to have a higher percentage of replacements in the future times to come ”
The future goal of the firm is ‘to reduce 10% of global carbon emissions, to multiply the manufacturing network, and to cover a 1 billion stubble collection in 4 to 5 years; said Tarun Jami. The founder asks future innovators to produce intelligent ideas and designs that do not have any waste.
Kesiya