From Tasmania to the World: Sergiy Kovalov and a Life Built with Hemp

When people talk about hemp building pioneers, Sergiy Kovalov’s name inevitably comes up. A civil engineer by training and a builder by conviction, Sergiy’s journey into hemp construction didn’t begin in a laboratory or a boardroom, it began, improbably, at a party in Tasmania.

An Engineer Meets Hemp in Tasmania

In 2010, Sergiy was already deeply embedded in the construction industry. As a civil engineer, he understood conventional materials inside out. Concrete, steel, cost efficiency, structural logic, these were familiar territories. Hemp, however, was not.

Curiosity won out. Sergiy volunteered to help on the project, stepping onto a site that would quietly reshape his career. The process was experimental, messy, and far from refined. Hemp was mixed in concrete trucks, the material was far too wet, and water leaked through formwork. But beneath the chaos, Sergiy saw something profound: a wall system made from local, plant-based materials that addressed housing shortages, health, and sustainability all at once.

“That was the moment,” “I realised this was the future, at least for residential construction.”

Sergiy Kovalenkov

Engineering Logic Meets a Radical Material

What set Sergiy apart early was not just enthusiasm, but engineering discipline. Hemp-lime wasn’t a novelty to him; it was a system that needed to be understood, tested, improved, and made repeatable.

To deepen his knowledge, Sergiy went to Europe, working on projects in France and Switzerland, regions with longer hemp building traditions. There, he learned what worked, what didn’t, and how early mistakes could be avoided. He saw how hemp-lime behaved over time, how moisture moved through walls, and how detailing mattered.

These lessons became the foundation for what came next.

Founding Hempire in Ukraine

After gaining experience across Europe, Sergiy returned to Ukraine and founded Hempire, a company dedicated to manufacturing hemp building materials and delivering full hemp-lime construction systems.

The timing could not have been harder. Hemp building was more expensive than conventional construction, clients were sceptical, and there were almost no completed local examples to point to. Sergiy found himself carrying folders of photos from overseas projects, patiently answering the same questions over and over again:

“Where can I see a house?”
“Can I touch it?”
“How long will it last?”

The first project came through persistence, and personal sacrifice. Sergiy discounted heavily, trained inexperienced crews himself, and took on enormous risk. The project ran into winter. Water froze inside the walls. Temperatures dropped to -20°C. For many builders, that would have been catastrophic.

Instead, it became a revelation. When spring came, the walls had not cracked or failed. Hemp-lime had survived freezing conditions that would terrify most contractors. That project cemented Sergiy’s belief not just emotionally, but technically: this material worked.

Building Through Crisis, and Beyond

As Hempire grew, Ukraine entered periods of deep instability, including the annexation of Crimea and later full-scale war. Housing insecurity became painfully real. Rather than retreat, Sergiy doubled down.

Today, Hempire operates internationally, manufacturing materials, building hemp homes, and delivering workshops across Europe and the United States. The company has become a recognised name in the global hemp building movement.

One of Hempire’s most significant current projects is a large-scale hemp-lime rehabilitation centre in western Ukraine for refugees, orphans, and war veterans, the largest hemp building of its kind in modern Ukrainian history. Using local materials and local labour, Hempire has trained displaced people to build with hemp, turning construction into both shelter and skill-building.

Why Sergiy Builds with Hemp Worldwide

For Sergiy, hemp is not a trend. It is a logical response to multiple global problems:

• Housing shortages in nearly every country
• Health impacts of toxic building materials
• Carbon emissions from conventional construction
• Local resilience, using materials grown and processed close to site

As an engineer, he values performance. As a builder, he values reliability. As a human, he values health and dignity. Hemp-lime sits at the intersection of all three.

Over the past decade, Sergiy has spoken at conferences around the world, often at his own expense, reinvesting profits into education and advocacy. He is a founding member of the US Hemp Building Association and a tireless advocate for codes, standards, and proper testing, not hype.

“Give first,” he often says. “That’s how this industry grows.”

A Global Voice, Grounded in Experience

From a muddy Tasmanian site to international projects across Europe and North America, Sergiy Kovalov’s story is not one of overnight success. It is a story of persistence, engineering rigour, and belief, tested under freezing temperatures, financial strain, and geopolitical instability.

As the hemp building industry matures, voices like Sergiy’s matter. Not because they promise easy answers, but because they’ve done the hard work, on site, in the lab, and in the real world.

Watch the full interview with Sergiy Kovalov below to hear his story in his own words and dive deeper into the technical and human realities of building with hemp.