Environmental Sustainability of Bricks in an Emerging Economy: Current Environmental Hotspots and Mitigation Potentials for the Future

Kamrul Islam (), Masaharu Motoshita and Shinsuke Murakami
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Kamrul Islam: Research Institute of Science for Safety and Sustainability, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 16-1 Onogawa, Tsukuba 305-8569, Ibaraki, Japan
Masaharu Motoshita: Research Institute of Science for Safety and Sustainability, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 16-1 Onogawa, Tsukuba 305-8569, Ibaraki, Japan
Shinsuke Murakami: Department of Systems Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: Clay-fired bricks are widely used in emerging economies mainly because of the unavailability of higher-grade construction and building materials; however, they are associated with significant social and environmental damage. The environmental burdens associated with the fuels and materials required for brick production are huge, as they have both direct and indirect effects along supply chains. This study aimed to assess the environmental footprints of brick production along supply chains, focusing on relevant environmental issues in brick production: carbon dioxide emissions, water consumption, and land use. We demonstrate that fuelwood consumption constitutes a major share of the carbon and water footprints, whereas built-up land for brick drying dominates the major effect of land use. Our expansion of the ecological footprint method enables a comparison of the effects of three different environmental issues with the same land area dimension, which reveals the relative severity of carbon dioxide emissions that account for up to 20% of the national CO 2 inventory. For the potential reduction in the environmental footprint of brick production, scenario analysis showed a substantial reduction by replacing clay-fired bricks with concrete bricks. The shift to alternative materials, together with mitigation measures for brick production, can effectively alleviate the environmental pressures of construction materials in future emerging economies.

Keywords: life cycle assessment; brick production; environmental sustainability; carbon footprint; water footprint; ecological footprint (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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