Prologue

In December 2024, I conducted a series of interviews with over 20 brick kiln owners in Rajasthan and Bihar in India. These conversations sought to understand the realities of an industry critical to construction and deeply entwined with environmental challenges. The kiln owners described the pressures of running their businesses—from fluctuating fuel availability to unreliable human labor—while navigating an inconsistent regulatory landscape regarding exhaust emissions.

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore how kiln owners perceive their challenges, what drives their decisions, and what solutions—both technological and policy-driven—might work in practice. The purpose of this work was not to critique or impose solutions but to listen. What emerged was a nuanced portrait of an industry at a crossroads, where the path forward will require trust, co-development, and an appreciation for the realities on the ground.

Brick kilns have long been a fixture of South Asia’s rural and peri-urban landscape, their chimneys silhouetted against the horizon, marking the intersection of industry and agriculture. Over 200,000 brick kilns are essential to the construction industry of South Asia, a legacy sector powering urbanization while contributing significantly to one of the region’s most pressing issues: air pollution.

Seeking Answers in the Brick Belt

Over the past year, I visited more than 20 brick kilns in India, speaking with owners across Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar county and Bihar’s brick-producing hubs near Patna. These conversations were part of a larger vision exploring how to decarbonize massively distributed industries like brick kilns, where pollution sources are small but ubiquitous, and where regulation and enforcement are persistently difficult. With a 'solution-seeking' approach, I explored fundamental questions with kiln owners - What drives your business decisions? Where do emissions originate within your operations? What policies or technologies could genuinely address these challenges? And, most critically, how can trust be built to co-develop solutions that work on the ground?

Resilience and Uncertainty

Each kiln I visited told a story of resilience and inertia. The owners often described their work as a “race against time”, squeezing every productive minute out of the firing season while navigating a web of challenges—fluctuating fuel prices and availability, unreliable labor, and the unpredictability of weather. Many still operate kilns using the Fixed Chimney Bull’s Trench Kiln (FCBTK) method, a decades-old technology that is resource-intensive and highly polluting. Others, spurred by government mandates or the example of neighbors, have transitioned to Zigzag kilns—a more efficient design that reduces emissions and improves brick quality. But even these upgrades have limitations.

“The Zigzag reform was expensive,” one owner explained. “We did it because the government required it. But it does not solve the pollution problem. Will it be enough five years from now? Who knows?” This uncertainty, echoed across multiple interviews, points to a deeper tension: compliance with regulations feels like a moving and often pointless target, one that kiln owners are ill-equipped to hit.

The Inconsistency of Regulatory Enforcement

Enforcement of environmental regulations in the brick sector is inconsistent at best. In Rajasthan, for example, kiln owners described a turbulent patchwork of inspections dependent on the availability and interest of local officials. In Bihar, the story was similar, with owners expressing frustration over unclear guidelines and overlapping enforcement from multiple regulatory agencies. 

Despite these challenges, there was a willingness to explore solutions that align with business priorities. Owners want technologies that are affordable, reliable, seamlessly integrate into their existing operations, and most importantly, future-proof their business. But trust is a critical barrier. Many have seen initiatives fail, often because they were designed without input from the people they were meant to serve. One owner put it bluntly: “If you want us to adopt something new, show me it works here, not in some laboratory.” Another gentleman reflected after a long pause: “There is no way to clean this smoke.”

Hundred Ways from Policy to Compliance

The interviews revealed a pattern in how policies translate to ground-level implementation. Operating on thin margins, kiln owners consistently seek to optimize (read minimize) their investments in regulatory compliance. Several owners described their approach as finding the minimum viable path to meet requirements—a rational response given their economic constraints. This dynamic played out visibly in previous initiatives such as the ‘zigzag reform’, where ambiguity in compliance standards led to varied interpretations and inconsistent outcomes. 

The implementation challenge extends beyond individual kiln owners. The regional networks of kiln owners and technology providers strongly influence technology-related decisions among kiln owners. These networks often collectively interpret and respond to policy changes, developing standardized approaches that emphasize minimum compliance over comprehensive solutions. The absence of guidelines or 'licenses' for qualified technology providers in this sector means that other than the respective kiln owner, no one shares the legal or monetary burden of improperly implemented policies. Since they are the only ones with skin in this game, kiln owners tend to be skeptic of new solutions. 

A couple of other insights emerged through these stories. First, the concept of modernization needs to be reframed. For kiln owners, modernization does not have to dismantle their current operations; they can be improved through a retrofit approach. An affordable and readily-installed filtration system, for instance, could curb the bulk of particulate emissions without requiring a complete overhaul. Coupled with real-time monitoring tools, both owners and regulators can receive access to actionable data, reducing the inefficiencies in compliance.

Finally, successful solutions emerge through community engagement and collaborative development. The mixed outcomes of the Zigzag reform illustrate this point. While the reform offered energy efficiency improvements and higher-quality bricks that fetch better prices, its implementation revealed consequential oversights. The anti-climactic absence of any visible reduction in pollution, despite the significant investment, left kiln owners puzzled and skeptical of future initiatives.

Looking Forward

Brick kilns represent a complex industry facing multiple pressures. Pollution from brick kilns is not just a technical issue; it is deeply intertwined with the socioeconomic fabric of the regions where they operate. Field observations suggest that effective change comes from understanding operational and social realities and working closely with industry stakeholders. Policies aligned with both operational and technological constraints can facilitate meaningful improvements if they acknowledge the economic pressures that drive minimum-compliance behaviors, account for how implementation unfolds through local networks, and provide clear, unambiguous standards that prevent varied interpretations of what constitutes compliance. With the opportunity costs of policy failure at an all-time high, we need co-developed solutions to lay the foundation for a net-zero future—brick by brick.