Environmental and economic tradeoffs in building materials production in India

Abstract

The current and projected growth of India's economy and population will continue to lead to increased demand for buildings and infrastructure, and there is a real need to consider what this increase means in terms of natural resource depletion, air pollution, contributions to global warming through greenhouse gas emissions during production and transport, and energy demands to be placed on an already strained energy network. Fired-clay bricks are the most commonly used building material in India, but recently, masonry units that don't require firing (stabilized bricks) have penetrated the market. There has been an exploration of the amalgamation of traditional earthen building materials combined with chemical binders. While these masonry materials are often considered superior in terms of environmental impact due to their lack of firing in visceral, black smoke-producing kilns, as well as their typically local (even on-site) production, there has been limited research into their actual environmental footprint. This thesis establishes models for robust analysis, and analyzes the environmental and cost tradeoffs associated with various building materials' choices to evaluate the hypothesis that the optimal materials choice is heavily dependent on the local soil composition and industrial ecosystem. That is, there is likely not one answer to the question of which is better: traditional fired clay bricks (red bricks) or alternative, cementitious materials, and instead, decision making must be assisted by analysis of the overall environmental impact of the upstream production and transportation of each material. Because of the variety of conditions throughout India, there is a need for this sort of tool to perform these analyses to determine the conditions under which different building materials have better environmental and/or economic outcomes. The analyses performed in this thesis conclude that there is the potential for alternative materials to break into the market, particularly in areas where red bricks are not produced on an industrial scale.