The South African clay brick manufacturing sector is both a diverse and a geographically distributed industry that provides employment both in the organized, formal sector and in an informal sector mostly made up of brickmakers in rural, under-developed areas.
The formal sector, which produces 3.6 billion clay bricks per year, provides 20,000 direct jobs and an additional 160,000 jobs in the clay brick market sector. It is largely represented by the Clay Brick Association of South Africa (CBA), which, with its members, has been promoting its sustainability agenda for over a decade. The formal sector seeks to mitigate environmental degradation, resource depletion, and energy use and related emissions. The informal clay brick sector has so far not been addressed, despite its obvious inefficiencies and negative environmental impacts.
This European Union co-funded project for the promotion of sustainable practices in the clay brick sector is being implemented by CBA in partnership with EcoMetrix Africa and Partners for Innovation. The project runs from January 2018 through to December 2020.
