other policy measures, such as pricing and fiscal measures, would be necessary to reduce CO2 and local air pollutants from the brick industry. However, before the government considers pricing policies, it is necessary to understand the technical as well as economic feasibility of those policies. No rigorous and quantitative analyses are available for Nepal in this area. This study aims to contribute to filling the knowledge gaps.

The main objective of this study is to examine the economics of various technologies and fuels for clay-fired brick production, such as the adoption or retrofit of energy-efficient technologies, application of cleaner renewable (zero carbon) biomass fuels (e.g., sustainable fuel wood, wood pellets/chips, sawdust, and bagasse), and electric technology. This study also examines the economics of resource-efficient bricks<sup>10</sup> (e.g., Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEB) and Hollow Concrete Block (HCB)) and modification of brick-based buildings with other sustainable alternatives (e.g., wood-frame structures with plywood for roof, wall, and floor buildings) in reducing harmful air pollution by reducing demand for clay-fired bricks in the future. The study conducted economic analysis from both private and social perspectives based on a techno-economic analysis framework for the brick industry. The study also utilizes the information collected through a rapid field-visit survey, physical observations of 22 brick kilns selected across the country, and consultation with brick industry experts in Nepal (Timilsina and Malla, 2023).

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly introduces Nepal’s brick industry, followed by methodological development in Section 3. Data collection through a survey is briefly discussed in Section 4. The main results along with sensitivity analyses are presented in Section 5. Section 6 presents policy implications/recommendations. Section 7 concludes the paper.

# **2. Overview of Nepal’s Brick Industry**

In 2018, there were about 1,349 operating brick kilns in Nepal,<sup>11</sup> and they produced an estimated 5.14 billion bricks, and the brick industry contributed 4% to the GDP, and employed nearly

> 10 Resource-efficient bricks here refer to bricks produced using sand, stone dust, cement, and soil mixed in different proportions and that do not go through the firing process. Since they are uncooked, their lifetime is shorter (20-30 years) as compared to the fired bricks which last hundreds of years.

> 11 The brick sector in Nepal is a poorly regulated and unorganized sector, and informal in nature. The brick sector statistics, such as the number of registered brick kilns, their production volume and kiln technology types, the number of people involved, and the quantity of energy consumption and types, are in general not well documented. The task of capturing these data is challenging. For instance, there is a wide variation in number of brick kilns (registered or in operation) and volume of brick production statistics in Nepal. For example, ILO et al. (2020) reported 966 kilns producing 3.04 billion bricks in 2018, ICIMOD (2019a) reported 1,349 kilns producing 5.14 billion bricks in 2018, FNCCI (2017) estimated 1,100 kilns in operation in 2012 with a production

4