Carmen Hock-Heyl

Carmen Hock-Heyl (born May 18, 1955 in Stutensee ) is a German entrepreneur. She is the founder and former managing director of the medium-sized company Thermo Hanf Hock GmbH & Co. KG, which is currently based in Nördlingen (Bavaria). It established hemp as a natural insulation material on the German market and was awarded the 2013 Environment Prize of the Federal Environment Foundation for this.

Life

Hock-Heyl is the daughter of an independent carpentry craftsman. She first learned the professions of a doctor's assistant and nurse . In her parents' business, in which she worked, she came into contact with the technology of thermal insulation for walls. The conventional insulation materials caused allergic reactions, itching and red eyes. Someone she knew grew hemp and gave her an innovative business idea. From 1996, when the cultivation of low-drug hemp varieties was allowed again in Germany, Hock-Heyl developed an ecological insulation material made from hemp fibers . Within two years she designed a marketable product. From 2003 she produced "Thermo-Hemp" in her own company with around 50 employees.

In 2013, at the insistence of the majority shareholder Alfred Ritter, Hock-Heyl withdrew from the management of Thermo Hanf Hock GmbH & Co. KG in order to focus only on their newly founded association for natural fiber insulation materials.

Awards

2012: natureplus award . Hock-Heyls was honored for her “lobbying for building materials made from renewable raw materials of all kinds.” She was one of the main initiators of the federal government's market launch program for building products made from renewable raw materials. In the same year, the association awarded the first natureplus certificate to Carmen Hock-Heyl for the thermal hemp insulation materials.
2013: Environment Prize of the Federal Environment Foundation . It was honored for establishing hemp on the market as an eco- insulating material and for its role model function. You have "against a lot of resistance successfully harmonized ecology and economy, promoted healthy building and revitalized regional economic cycles." Federal President Joachim Gauck presented the individual award, endowed with 250,000 euros.