Corobrik Managing Director Dirk Meyer answers the 'green' questions

1. What is classified as a green material?

“Green” in building material terms is a relative term with greenness being referenced from two perspectives, namely:

• Whether the building material is composed of renewable rather than non renewable resources, and
• Impacts of the building material over the life of the product.

Typically, the “Greenness” of building materials is judged by their impacts in application. For example, fired clay bricks typically use non renewable fuel resources in their manufacture, and therefore may not be considered truly green - however – the clay from which clay bricks are made is a bountiful resource throughout South Africa – a fallow resource being put to a useful long term purpose that has low impacts on the environment. As an example clay brick is an inert material and as such does not release any Volatile Organic Compounds over the life of clay brick in application to negatively impact on the quality of the air one breathes. This inert quality of fired clay brings a “green” quality to the product over its entire lifecycle. Of course the maintenance free qualities of clay face bricks that incur no future carbon debt over the products lifecycle may be seen as another green quality.

2. What is Corobrik doing in the greening space?

As a business, we have been addressing “green” or environmental issues for many years. As with all businesses, global warming and the prevailing debate on solutions to global warming has raised the anti towards better understanding one’s business and the impact it has on the environment in carbon footprint terms. To this end Corobrik a long time back commissioned research with CSIR Built Environment and other professional organizations to better understand its carbon footprint and what we need to do better and more of to reduce our carbon footprint and enhance the environmental integrity of the business.
Some of the areas where Corobrik has been focusing to reduce environmental impacts have been in:

• The extraction of clay raw materials;
• Transport;
• Processing of raw materials;
• The ongoing dematerialization of its products;
• The re-use and recycling of waste;
• The wider use of cleaner burning fuels. Natural gas as now used at 6 of our major factories virtually halves the amount of Green House Gas emissions compared to the same bricks produced with coal as a firing fuel.

3. What constitutes a green Corobrik for example?
A green Corobrik is:

• A brick that is manufactured in a way that respects the environment and the earth from where it comes.
• A brick with a carbon footprint as low as possible in line with international best practice.
• A brick manufactured to exacting international standards to ensure its structural and aesthetic integrity over its entire lifecycle.
• A brick that has been successfully dematerialized, lowering the energy consumed in the manufacturing process and in transportation of the product to site. Notably, Corobrik through the introduction of new intrusion technology at its factories has achieved dematerialization reducing carbon emissions by approximately 20% when compared to “standard” clay bricks Corobrik previously produced with 25% voids. Such dematerialized brick also permit some 10% more bricks to be loaded on the same vehicle reducing the transport carbon footprint accordingly.

4. What impacts do Corobrik bricks have in a building?

In the first instance, it is:

• A material that does not deteriorate losing its structural and aesthetic integrity during normal wear and tear, demonstrating longevity and durability that well “outlives its builder”.
• A material that is colour fast providing long term aesthetic integrity. Corobrik bricks are a structural/decorative material all in one, do not warp, rot, peel or get eaten by insects and do not require replacement within a 50 year lifecycle as do less durable alternate walling materials.
• Being maintenance free, Corobrik face bricks incur no future carbon debt associated with a lifetime of maintenance.
• Corobrik bricks do not impinge on the air quality of habitable spaces, notably Corobrik clay bricks are inert and as such do not release any Volatile Organic Compounds associated with many applied finishes.
• Probably most importantly in the context of today’s environmental paradigm and the need to address global warming through lowering the use of electrical energy, Corobrik bricks help contribute to optimal thermal performance of walling envelopes, greater thermal comfort for occupants and lowest energy usage for heating and cooling.

In this regard, extensive modelling research shows that between 25 to 40% of total operational energy of a home is consumed by heating and cooling interventions. Double skin clay brick walls have been shown by these studies to provide the lowest lifecycle energy cost for heating and cooling of houses.

In fact, the Full Life Cycle Assessment [LCA] by a company called Energetics in Australia
found that the total Green House Gas emissions applicable to a clay brick house for heating and cooling was between 16% and 26% lower than that for the timber frame alternate over a 50 year lifecycle.

These were sufficient to mostly offset the higher embodied energy of clay brick houses as built when compared to the lower embodied energy Timber Frame insulated weatherboard houses, over a 50 year lifecycle. The total carbon footprint of the clay brick house however became progressively lower in all situations past an 80 year lifecycle.

It is these lower lifecycle impacts clay brick construction provides, coupled with clay bricks of the lowest possible carbon footprint as provided by Corobrik, that defines why Corobrik clay brick construction is so relevant for a sustainable future.

5. What would Corobrik define as a sound environmental practice?

With clay brick manufacture, Corobrik defines sound environmental practice as:

• Quarrying and manufacturing operations being undertaken within parameters and requirements of Environmental Management Plans for each quarry and manufacturing process.
• Concurrent rehabilitation of all quarries taking place during annual quarrying operations to ensure the future rehabilitation liabilities are kept to a minimum.
• Environmental Management Plan for each quarry that provides for final rehabilitation and re-use as a nature reserve around a pollution free dam, recreational facilities and/or sites for commercial and residential development and/or as farmland.
• The use of continuous kiln technologies able to ensure the most efficient use of energy through the drying and firing processes.
• Careful and continuous attention to lowering electrical power usage throughout the production process.
• The wider use of cleaner burning fuels such as natural gas that halves the CO₂ emissions when compared to coal fuel.
• Dematerialization interventions, where one makes the “same” brick product but of less material yet equal or more product attributes and with lower greenhouse gas emissions.

6. There is also a sustainability aspect to going green, how does Corobrik contribute to this factor?

Corobrik embraces a future that is environmentally sustainable within the context of a holistic approach that considers the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability.
Everything we have done to “green the business” has been economically viable and valuable to society in some way. It really is all a question of finding the right balance.

To take you through an example, our move to natural gas for firing of our kilns is a good one. If one looks at the cost of natural gas, it is higher than for other firing fuels. Therefore, if one just looked at fuel element of the production process it, has the propensity to make ones products uncompetitive and might have been discarded as an option.
However, when one considers the higher fuel cost against the social and environmental benefits, a different picture emerges. Natural gas provides other benefits that include:

• A cleaner atmosphere
• Reduced dust levels
• A healthier work environment
• Greater control of the firing process
• Higher product yields of first grade products
• Greater employee productivity.

This most importantly has provided Corobrik the opportunity to reach its objective to bring to the South African market bricks of the highest quality consistency and lowest carbon footprint in line with best international standards, this in turn supporting the sustainability of Corobrik’s business into the future.