RETRACTED: GROWN_lab for fast growing material GROWN was founded in 2023 as a Unit at MIT (Material Technology Innsbruck) to expand the university’s range of expertise in the field of fast growing raw materials. The core task of the interdisciplinary platform is the development of contextualised material technology solutions and product developments for industries such as construction and mobility.

Cascading value creation models: Fast growing, and therefore renewable raw materials require a holistic approach to their use and utilisation; in the best case, agricultural residues are used so that there is no competition in terms of land consumption for food production. Depending on their type and quality, these agricultural residues can be used for production processes with varying degrees of technical requirements. Changing cultivation and harvesting conditions as well as climatic extremes lead to increased fluctuations in quality, so that, similar to wood as an already established renewable raw material, classification models are being developed that enable efficient, quality-orientated and coordinated further processing. Hemp as relevant player in the ecological material revolution: Since its foundation, GROWN has been focusing on the holistic utilization of the industrial hemp plant as a particularly promising player in the ecologization of industrial material technologies, actually still dependent on fossil raw material. GROWN, meanwhile involved in 8 research and development projects based on hemp technologies, at national and international level – is facing this challenge: farming, harvest an production processes are analyzed, according data are collected and raw materials are characterized in various process stages to create a basis for stable product and technology developments. The approach of cascading concepts across all projects requires corresponding networked thinking and acting; the generation of comprehensive data sets is increasingly starting in agriculture and playing out in automated production processes at the end of the process chain.