The world´s first bookprinting paper made of Hemp is a passion project of photographer and climate impact storyteller Maren Krings and our team at Hahnemühle. When Maren came up with the idea of her book on the re-invention of industrial hemp printed on hemp paper, our product managers, quality department team and well trained paper technologists got into action.
Since 2016 Maren Krings has tracked the rediscovery of industrial hemp in five continents. At the same time Hahnemühle expanded the „Natural Line“ range of papers made of Bamboo, Agave, Sugar Cane and Hemp fibres. Plant-based pulp for papermaking is a natural progression for Hahnemühle as paper was made from plant-based textile rags until the industrial revolution. Hahnemühle invented at first a sustainable Hemp paper for photography, followed by drawing and most recently, a premium Hybrid Hemp paper for print and book publishing.
Initially Hahnemühle supported Maren Krings photo exhibition ‘Hemp’s Potential’ which was printed on Digital FineArt Inkjet Paper Hahnemühle Hemp. The genuine plant-fibre based paper from our „Natural Line“ is made of 60 % Hemp fibres and 40 % cotton linters – a leftover from the oil and textile industry – and was launched 2019. At the beginning of 2021, we launched a new 80 gsm sketch paper made of hemp. Both papers – from our digital and traditional artist paper range – became the foundation for the paper in the book „H is for Hemp“
The uncoated papers were printed on HP PageWide T250HD for the book blocks on Hybrid Hemp 80gsm and the covers on 280gsm Hybrid Hemp paper on a sheet-fed HP Indigo Commercial Press at Elanders Germany.
Hahnemühle supports the 100% tree-free book with our very own environmental initiative Green Rooster which is a unique environmental initiative in the paper industry.
