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A multi-year research effort involving Nina Brooks, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), found that while relatively simple changes to how traditional brick kilns operate in Bangladesh can reduce pollution, save fuel, and improve the quality of the bricks they produce, those productivity gains did not translate into better conditions for the people doing the work. 

The research asked: Could an industry essential to Bangladesh’s rapid urban growth, but also a major source of air pollution, become cleaner without requiring kiln owners to make expensive investments in new technology?

The answer was encouraging, but it led to a harder question: If cleaner production also makes businesses more productive and profitable, do workers share in those gains? In the short term, the researchers found, they did not.

As the world's fourth-largest brick producer, Bangladesh has approximately 8,000 traditional kilns that supply more than 90% of the country's domestic bricks. The process of brickmaking is associated with significant carbon emissions and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which contributes to a global public health crisis. 

The research is the culmination of about eight years of work that began during Brooks' doctoral studies. Along with her collaborators, she first worked to understand the industry, mapping kilns using satellite imagery and machine learning, examining regulation and studying health effects on communities living downwind. That work also revealed the limitations of regulating only where brick kilns can be established.

“Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries,” Brooks said. “It is not feasible to move brick kilns away from all schools, health facilities and urban centers that may be harmed by the pollution.”

Instead, the researchers began looking at whether existing kilns could operate more efficiently. They introduced modest operational changes that eventually saw wider adoption because they were economically beneficial, which led the researchers to investigate why adoption varied from place to place and whether the economic gains extended to workers. 

Read the full story on the Michigan News website. 

Study: Reducing emissions and air pollution from informal brick kilns: Evidence from Bangladesh (DOI: 10.1126/science.adr7394)

Companion study: Productivity gains and work conditions in coercive labor markets: Experimental evidence from the Bangladesh brick sector (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2528388123)

Related study: Scalable deep learning to identify brick kilns and aid regulatory capacity (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2018863118)

Related study: Health consequences of small-scale industrial pollution: Evidence from the brick sector in Bangladesh (DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106318)