Our story

It started with one flag.

One flag for the whole planet, raised on the ice. Then we asked what it was made of.

The film. One flag, one minute.
Where it began

One flag. One planet. One question.

Before Hemptex® there was EarthFlags. Captain Clemens Oestreich and the crew of the Infinity Expedition planted the Earth flag on the ice at both ends of the world. One flag for everyone, a symbol to take care of one another and of the planet we live on.

On the ice, Clemens asked the question that started everything. Why plant a flag for the planet that is made of polyester? Can we make this of something else?

That was the spark. We went looking for another material, and we fell in love with hemp.

Infinity ExpeditionWith Infinity Expedition and Captain Clemens Oestreich
Terraced hemp fields at the foot of the Himalayas, from the air
Uttarakhand, India
The trip that decided it

So we went to India.

To the foot of the Himalayas, where hemp has grown for as long as anyone remembers. We sat with farmers. We walked the terraces. We saw a crop that asks for rain, and not much else. Here hemp is grown as a polycrop, in between the other crops on the terraces, the way it has been for generations.

We met the people who spin it and weave it, and we came home with a bag of cloth and a plan.

Three metres in a hundred days. Nothing sprayed.

Niek next to a hemp plant taller than himself
Taller than us
The crop, up close
Niek at a mill, looking at hemp cloth with the weavers
The people who weave it
Circular hemp terraces seen straight from above
Terraces, from above
Niek on the dunes with a Hemptex flag
Back home

One thing was clear.

The world should not use polyester where it isn't needed. So we started where the plastic is thickest: flags.

Weatherproof, colourfast, stitched to last, and made of hemp. We showed a polyester-based industry that the natural way works. The first ones flew for NGOs, festivals, builders and expeditions.

Niek next to a Hemptex beach flag at a beach bar
Today

Now we prove it on every front we can.

For organisations

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From 50 pieces: your logo, your colours, our hemp.

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Our story - Hemptex®