energy efficiency

Steady economic growth and large working-age populations are driving demand for bricks to support a decades long construction boom across South Asian countries. Coal-burning traditional brick kilns that operate in the informal sector produce the majority of these bricks and contribute substantially to global climate change and worsen local air quality.

We employed a multiphase, interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to identify solutions. In this paper, we first summarize past approaches and discuss the key barriers we identified to improving the industry, then we present the design, and results of a randomized pilot energy efficiency intervention designed to overcome barriers to improved kiln operation.