Impact Brief: A Focus on Indoor Pollution Becomes a Mission to Transform an Outdoor Industry

Arjuna Dibley sensed an opportunity. A doctoral student at Stanford Law School, he had come across an article about an ambitious project to address a major source of pollution across South Asia and a driver of deadly respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in the region: brickmaking.

The project, led by Stanford Professor of Medicine Stephen Luby, aims to transform an industry that is both essential and perilous to South Asian economies. And it has become a multi-pronged effort by Stanford scholars and private companies to bring cleaner technologies to brickmaking in Bangladesh.

“This is terrific,” Dibley thought as he learned about the initiative’s potentially massive impact on public health, the environment, labor practices, and the economy in Bangladesh and beyond. Before coming to Stanford’s interdisciplinary JSD program, Dibley worked on a number of climate change projects as a lawyer with Baker McKenzie. He understood how complex these kinds of undertakings can be. He saw in Luby’s approach a very promising and scalable strategy.

Dibley emailed Luby, whom he didn’t know, and within days had joined a status meeting of the project’s core Stanford team. They included political scientist Francis Fukuyama, geophysicist Howard Zebker and Nina Brooks, a PhD student in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

Today, more than a year later, Dibley is spearheading the project’s quest to raise $5 million to retrofit 50 brickmaking kilns in Bangladesh to show proof of concept.

A SURPRISING INSIGHT SETS OFF A CRUSADE

Brick manufacturing in Bangladesh and across South Asia is a double-edged sword. Bricks are essential building material in the region, where booming construction has been key to economic growth and poverty reduction. Luby estimates that, in Bangladesh alone, 1 million low-income households depend on money generated by brick manufacturing.

But brickmaking also harms the environment, public health, and workers. Brick kilns across South Asia have a global warming impact equivalent to the emissions of all passenger cars in the United States. The air pollution they produce kills tens of thousands of people each year as a result of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, according to Luby. And kiln workers suffer from extremely hazardous conditions, including toxic emissions and exploitative pay practices.

Brick kilns weren’t on Luby’s radar when, as country director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stationed in Bangladesh, he was looking at the effects of air pollution on respiratory disease as part of a larger study on the influenza virus.

“From the beginning, everyone has understood that this is much more than a research project” — Stephen Luby

While Luby and his collaborators expected cookstoves to be a major contributor to indoor pollution, they discovered instead that outside air seeping into the home was the primary culprit. And when Luby learned that brick kilns accounted for as much as 40% of ambient air pollution in Dhaka, he switched his focus from cookstoves to the roughly 7,000 brick kilns in Bangladesh.

The key to making a difference in the world is to have an angle on a potentially solvable area, said Luby, who joined the Stanford faculty in 2012. “Here was a really good place to focus because it’s one problem with a disproportionate impact.”

A STRATEGY CUTS ACROSS THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Luby wanted to work with small manufacturers, who have supplied about 85% of Bangladesh’s brick needs for decades, to upgrade their kilns with cleaner technology. He is betting that incremental upgrades, such as modifying factories so that less heat escapes during the brick making process, is a better alternative to importing building materials or relying on global industrial brick manufacturers and their more advanced technology.

As straightforward as his plan was, Luby knew there would be challenges. Corruption in Bangladesh is widespread, enforcement of environmental regulations is weak, and exploitation of seasonal workers is rampant. To succeed, he’d need buy-in from multiple stakeholders, among them the government of Bangladesh, lenders, agricultural interests, philanthropists, and—crucially—brick manufacturers reluctant to change.

“I knew this would be a complex problem without a roadmap,” said Luby. “I also knew that, as a communicable disease epidemiologist, I was out of my element.”

85: Percentage of Bangladesh’s bricks made by small manufacturers

Today, Luby has a comprehensive model for transforming the industry and the expertise to make it happen. In addition to Dibley’s fundraising work, Fukuyama, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is advising on governance issues and political messaging. Zebker, who is an authority on satellite imaging of volcanoes and other environmental phenomena, is leading a team that is using infrared and near-infrared technology and machine learning to map kilns, which are poorly regulated and tracked. Brooks, who is also working on kiln mapping, is now overseeing studies of the health effects of living near brick kilns.

Luby has also lined up key partners outside Stanford. BRAC, the world’s largest non governmental development organization, will provide kiln owners with technical and financial assistance. He is also working closely with an anthropologist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh.

Luby’s biggest success so far has been winning over kiln owners—a remarkable feat given the hostility they have faced over their business practices. “We trust that he can do something for us that is less costly and very effective,” said Jamil Hussain, vice president of the Bangladesh Brick Manufacturing Owners Association.

With the key players in place, Luby and his team will next pilot their model. Eventually, they hope to expand it to up to 50 kilns. In less than a decade, they hope that 80% of Bangladeshi kilns will be using cleaner technologies and that other South Asian economies will follow.

“From the beginning, everyone has understood that this is much more than a research project,” said Luby. “I’m a public health doctor focused on saving lives, but this is a problem that involves the climate, health, behavior change, economics, and politics. The only way this can succeed is with people with different perspectives, backgrounds, and ideas.”

This issue brief describes how teams of researchers and leaders in government, business, and nonprofits can work together to generate new ideas, insights, and solutions to make progress on social problems. The Brick Making project was awarded funding in the second round of Stanford Impact Labs Start-Up Funding. Professor Steve Luby was a member of Stanford Impact Labs’ design team and now serves on the Faculty Advisory Board. This brief was written prior to the launch of Stanford Impact Labs to show how new evidence and insights developed jointly by scholars and external practitioners can inform policies and programs to improve lives.

Stanford Impact Labs invests in highly motivated teams of researchers and practitioners from government, business, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropy. These teams—impact labs—work together on social problems they choose and where practical progress is possible. With financial capital and professional support from Stanford Impact Labs, they can rapidly develop, test, and scale new solutions to social problems that affect millions of people worldwide.

Learn more about the work Stanford Impact Labs is investing in at impact.stanford.edu.