Embodied Carbon: Are Bricks Sustainable?
- Annie Watson
- Oct 1, 2022
- 1 min read
Despite the high level of embodied carbon in bricks, they still seem to be the 'go-to' material in construction. I've been looking at alternatives to brick built external walls and trying to find more sustainable options that are still as robust...
Stone is still abundant and is 2-3 times stronger
Rammed Earth Construction can have an embodied carbon as low as 5-10kgCO2e/m2 and is available locally
Modern Unfired Brick has only 14% of the carbon embodiment that fired bricks have and can be compressed to an accurate tolerance and offers a better strength to carbon ratio making them far more sustainable
Hempcrete actually sequests rather than emits carbon and is an excellent insulator
Reclaimed Bricks are a freely available resource following demolition (2.5million bricks per year arise following demolition
Reference:Mounsey R & Webb S; 2021; "Climate Action: We Can Put a Block on Brick; https://www.ribaj.com/intelligence/structures-sustainability-we-can-put-a-block-on-brick-steve-webb [30/9/22]
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