Frontiers of Architectural Research (2017) 6, 519–528

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Frontiers of Architectural Research

www.keaipublishing.com/foar

REVIEW

Review of economic and environmental

benefits of earthen materials for housing in
Africa
Olumuyiwa Bayode Adeguna,b,n, Yomi Michael Daisiowa Adedejia

a
Department of Architecture, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria
b
School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Received 1 March 2017; received in revised form 28 August 2017; accepted 29 August 2017

KEYWORDS Abstract
Housing; Solutions to housing problems must deal with the issue of building materials – especially
Building materials; advancing those which lower construction cost and costs to the environment. This paper
Sustainability; aggregates and reviews empirical evidences to show the advantages and disadvantages of
Energy; earthen construction materials in terms of cost, energy and thermal properties. We reviewed
Thermal comfort,
136 academic outputs from 17 African countries. Apart from a few studies that differ, literature
Africa
concurs that earthen construction materials are generally cheaper, cleaner and more thermally
comfortable. Notwithstanding the advantages, the level of uptake is presently low. Earthen
materials’ strength and durability are key limitations. We identify possible areas for future
research and present specific recommendations that can promote the uptake of earthen
materials for housing construction in African cities.
& 2017 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on
behalf of KeAi. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Contents

1. Introduction and motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

1.1. Categories of earthen systems used in housing construction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
2. Review methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

n
Corresponding author at: Department of Architecture, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.
E-mail addresses: muyiwaadegun@yahoo.co.uk, obadegun@futa.edu.ng (O.B. Adegun), yomi_adedejiy2k@yahoo.com,
ymdadedeji@futa.edu.ng (Y.M.D. Adedeji).
Peer review under responsibility of Southeast University.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2017.08.003
2095-2635/& 2017 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
520 O.B. Adegun, Y.M.D. Adedeji

3. Findings and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522

3.1. Cost - saving and economic advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
3.2. Thermal comfort advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
3.3. Energy advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
3.4. Many advantages, but low uptake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
4. Conclusion and reccommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

1. Introduction and motivation ecological and environmental resources (Wells, 1995;

Challenges associated with delivering adequate and afford-
able housing to people in the low-income category is
usually linked to the issue of construction materials and
technology. Literature shows that materials constitute the
largest single input in housing construction, accounting for
60–70% of total cost in Ghana (Danso and Manu, 2013),
around 65% in Nigeria (Mogbo, 1999), over 76% in Tanzania
(Wells et al., 1998) and 68% in Kenya (Syagga, 1993). A
number of scholars have established the fact that escalat-
ing cost of building materials is one of the major factors
responsible for the widening gap between demand and
supply of affordable and adequate housing (Adedeji, 2007;
Zami and Lee, 2010; Assaf et al., 2010; Kulkarni et al.,
2014). Two-digit inflation on the price of construction
materials, in the recent years, have resulted in continual
increase in housing costs in some countries (Tesfaye, 2007;
Kanjumbaf et al., 2016).
Housing inadequacy is not only a function of rising prices.
The impact of construction materials and technology on the
environment deserves attention. Housing demand and
investment opportunities that accompany urbanisation
mean greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through construction
might double by 2050 (UNEP/CIDB, 2009). Most part of the
resources needed to build houses for all are non-renewable.
These problems motivate the need to (re)consider the
promotion of materials that result in lower construction
costs and minimal costs to the environment.
Earthen construction materials, with a long history in
Africa (Fathy, 1973; Denyer, 1978) are one of the most
experimented technologies in the current search for eco-
nomically and environmentally sustainable housing
(Dayaratne, 2011). They are known for certain advantages
and disadvantages which have not been sufficiently under-
stood, documented or regulated, thus hampering appropri-
ate knowledge sharing within Sub-Saharan Africa (Obonyo
et al., 2010). Benefits associated with this material are not
fully explored because research outputs have not been
properly brought together (Adogbo and Kolo, 2006). The
absence of aggregated empirical evidence on the touted
benefits and little-known demerits of earthen materials
motivates the review reported in this paper.
We review literature providing evidence on the advan-
tages and disadvantages of earthen construction in terms of
cost, energy and thermal properties. By identifying and
discussing available proofs, we seek to further arouse
interest in earthen materials and technologies in housing
projects in African cities. Review on an indigenous building
material like this can inform policy in this part of the world
where urbanisation is putting pressure on economic,
Adegun, 2011).
1.1. Categories of earthen systems used in
housing construction
Earthen construction materials and technologies, as con-
sidered in this paper, are in four broad categories – simple
clay (adobe) blocks, rammed earth, clay/soil plus other
components and machined blocks. Fig. 1 shows an example
in each of the categories. While rammed earth (Fig. 1a) is
associated with wall construction, cob and straw, pole and
mud, wattle and daub, earth-bags are examples of clay's
combination with other components (Fig. 1c, e and f).
Machine processed blocks are mechanically compressed or
oven-baked and then stabilised or strengthened with mate-
rials or additives such as cement, fly ash and fibre. Cement
Stabilised Earth/Soil Blocks (CSEB/CSSB), Interlocking Sta-
bilised Soil Blocks (ISSB) and Composite Compressed Earth
Block (CCEB), shown in Fig. 1d, fall into this last category.
2. Review methods
This review includes five steps (after Green, 2005): (i) framing
a question (ii) identifying relevant studies (iii) assessing the
studies (iv) extracting evidences (v) analyzing and presenting
findings. A comprehensive search for academic outputs (from
1980 to 2016) was conducted in Scopus and Google scholar
databases. Google scholar complements Scopus/Web of
science because it ‘covers more publications and citations’
and includes ‘publications produced by researchers in devel-
oping countries that cannot afford the ISI's or Elsevier's
subscription’ (Onyancha and Ocholla, 2009:62).
The search algorithms combined words such as ‘earthen’,
‘adobe’, ‘mud/clay’, ‘rammed earth’, ‘building’, ‘housing’.
The initial and general search returned over 8000 outputs in
both Scopus and Google scholar. A country-specific refinement
then followed (See Table 1 for numbers returned per country).
A total of 136 publications - journal articles, conference
proceedings, book chapters, thesis/dissertations, reports
related to earthen building and housing were selected from
the country-specific outputs. Although not all the 136 outputs
selected dealt with the economic, energy and environmental
merits and demerits of earthen housing, they reflect the
geographical distribution of earthen building/housing biblio-
graphy in Africa. Question about the advantages or disadvan-
tages of earthen construction over other materials guided a
review of the selected papers. The outputs, and their
references, were reviewed to identify cases of merits and
demerits in comparison with other materials.
Review of economic and environmental benefits of earthen materials for housing in Africa 521

Fig. 1 (a) Rammed earthen house, Bonda, Zimbabwe, Source: Rammed Earth Consulting, undated (b) Sundried Clay blocks, Source:
Earth Architecture, 2009 (c) Earth-bag housing under construction, Source: Dabaieh and Sayd (2013) (d) ISSB House under
construction, Source: Nairaland, 2015 (e) Cob house, Source: www.za.pinterest.com (f) Wattle, Daub and Stone Wall, Source:
Author's Archive.

Table 1 Search outputs on earthen housing construction and the distribution across Africa.Source: Author's Survey

Country Total Outputs related Types of outputs selected

Search to earthen
output building Journal Conference Book Thesis/ Report Others
Article Proceeding Chapter Dissertation

Algeria 650 4 3 1
Botswana 230 6 4 1 1
Burkina Faso 345 3 2 1
Cameroon 455 4 4
Congo- 66 2 1 1
Brazzaville
Egypt 5450 17 8 4 2 3
Ethiopia 1340 4 1 3
Ghana 947 11 9 2
Kenya 1000 10 1 6 2 1
Mozambique 610 3 2 1
Nigeria 921 29 20 1 1 5 2
Sudan 865 5 1 2 1 1
South Africa 7670 14 5 1 1 4 3
Tanzania 553 10 7 1 2
Uganda 517 5 3 2
Zambia 293 1 1
Zimbabwe 414 8 4 4
Total 136 73 17 4 30 5 7
522 O.B. Adegun, Y.M.D. Adedeji

Table 2 Economic advantages of earthen material in housing construction.

Project Description Location Cost saving or increase recorded Reference (s)

Experimental low-cost housing Egypt Rammed earth costs EUR30 – 40/m , which is less
2
Dabaieh and Sakr
with rammed earth walls than 50% of conventional techniques. (2015)
Constructing 1-room house with Cairo, Egypt Earth bag four times cheaper compared with Dabaieh and Sayd
earth bags (See Fig. 1c) conventional techniques. (2013)
Sun-dried, locally-baked bricks Vhembe, South A unit of mud brick cost R1.20 1.50 while SA Construction
produced in a cottage Africa conventional industrially-baked, or cement bricks News (2014)
enterprise cost R2.50 3 per unit.
CSSB wall in an experimental Gaborone, A unit of CSSB costs P0.23 compared with P0.49 Ngowi (2001)
housing project Botswana for concrete brick of similar dimensions
Soil blocks as part of construc- Boane, Soil block walls cost 9,410MTn, cement bricks Kuchena and Usiri
tion materials tested for a Mozambique cost 23,030MTn while industrial bricks cost (2009a)
rural house model 19,430MTn. Foundation of soil block house costs
8,465MTn while cement/industrial bricks cost
9,981MTn.
Stabilised soil blocks for a 40 m2 South Africa Stabilized blocks house costs US$4000; Industrial Kuchena and Usiri
residential house bricks -US$6 000; Concrete blocks - US$7 000; (2009b)
High-tech modular system - US$10 000.
Rammed earth walls for a 2-bed- Zimbabwe Rammed earth costs ZW$18million while conven- Rammed Earth Ltd.
room house tional cement walls cost ZW$45million. (2006)
Hydraulically pressed clay bricks Tanzania Clay bricks house costs US$5956.40 versus US Mehta and Bridwell
used to build a 1350 ft2 house $12,025.96 for a concrete block house. (2005)
ISSB as a dry masonry walling Kenya ISSB costs KES250 – 400 while wet masonry wall Gichuhi (2012)
material for housing costs KES850
ISSB costs KES 378 /m2 while wet masonry wall
was KES 1380 /m2
Resettlement project with Kano, Nigeria CSSB house costs NGN15,000 while conventional Opoko (1989)
model houses built of CSSB materials cost NGN80,000
Earthen material for walling in a Nigeria Earthen walls cost US$2068 in comparison with Olateju (1988)
low-cost house modern/imported materials which cost US
$11,600
CSSB for a single family 2-bed- Nigeria CSSB house costs NGN243,958.25 while sandcrete Olotuah (2002)
room house block house costs NGN 364,838.00
ISSB for dry masonry wall in Akure/Abuja, ISSB wall costs US$10.32/m2 while conventional Adedeji (2011)
student housing Nigeria walling materials costs US$21.98/m2
2
CSSB for a 110 m 3-bedroom Abuja, Nigeria Finishing and painting cost NGN89,000 for CSSB Didel et al. (2014)
house walls and NGN351,920 for hollow sandcrete block
walls

3. Findings and discussion
3.1. Cost - saving and economic advantages
This section brings together and review evidences on the
economic and cost-benefit advantages of earthen housing
construction, with examples from Botswana, Egypt, Kenya,
Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe
(See Table 2). Some of the cost/economic comparisons are
based on detailed calculations from construction projects,
whether experimental or otherwise. Others are derived
from desktop analysis and computer simulations of real or
hypothetical building designs.
In conducting this review, we found that the cost of
earthen construction materials vary from country to country
and within the regions in each country. It also depends on
factors such as building design, site location, labour costs,
additives, stabilisation process and repair needs (Adam and
Agib, 2001; Pacheco-Torgal and Jalali, 2012).
Almost all the publications reviewed show that earthen
materials are cheaper (See Table 2). For example, rammed
earth walls are 50% and 60% cheaper than conventional
cement-based sandcrete walls in Egypt (Dabaieh and Sakr,
2015) and Zimbabwe (Zami and Lee, 2008) respectively.
Compared with industrially-fired, cement-based bricks, ISSB
and CSSB are 30% and 60% cheaper respectively (UN-
HABITAT, 2009). They are also faster to construct. Walls
made of CSSB are 33% cheaper in Nigeria (Olotuah, 2002)
and over 100% cheaper in Botswana (Ngowi, 2001) and
Mozambique (Kuchena and Usiri, 2009a). Similarly, ISSB
walls are 50% cheaper than masonry walls in Kenya
(Gichun, 2012; Muinde, 2013). In Uganda, cost saved by
Review of economic and environmental benefits of earthen materials for housing in Africa 523

Fig. 2 Comparison of costs using different materials for a single storey 70 m2 two-bedroom house with 150 mm walls.
Source: Kalra and Bonner (2012).

Table 3 Comparison on thermal variables of earthen versus other housing construction materials.

Description Earthen Material Other Construction type Source

Soil bricks stabilised with fly Thermal lag of 7 h Thermal lag of 3 h Makaka and
ash versus cement bricks Meyer (2006)
in a low-cost house
Maximum (29 1C) and minimum (14 1C) Maximum (34 1C) and minimum (14 1C)
indoor temperature resulting in tem- indoor temperature resulting in tem-
perature swing of 15 1C perature swing of 20 1C;
Mud brick versus CSSB versus Annual cooling and heating loads: mud Annual cooling and heating loads for Elkhalifa
Cement bricks in the con- bricks 235,987 Wh/m2; CSSB cement bricks 244,388 Wh/m2 (2011)
struction of a 70 m two- 284,757 Wh/m2
2

bedroom house in Sudan

Hourly heat gain in hottest day: 72,749 Hourly heat gain in hottest day: 76,613
(mud), 87,614 (CSSB) for cement bricks
Total annual hours within comfort band: 2116.0 h are within the comfort band/
2116.3 h (mud) and 1975.3 h (CSSB) year for cement bricks
CSSB versus concrete blocks Thermal conductivity of 0.81 Thermal conductivity of 1.00 Adam and
1.04 W/m1C 1.70 W/m1C Agib (2001).
Gypsum-stabilised earth Producing gypsum-stabilised blocks Producing concrete blocks involves sin- Vroomen
blocks versus concrete involves calcinations at 125 1C tering at 1100 1C (2007)
blocks
Laboratory test on material Thermal conductivity, resistivity and Thermal conductivity, resistivity and Alausa et al.
diffusivity for concrete-block sample
sample: mud brick versus diffusivity for laterite-mud sample were (2013)
cement block 0.523 W m 1 K 1, 1.912 mK W 1 and were 0.435 W m 1 K 1, 2.299 mK W 1
1.126  10 1 m2 s 1 respectively. and of 1.215  10 4 m2 s 1
respectively.
Hourly temperature in a House made of un-plastered adobe wall House made of plastered sandcrete Lawal and
house in Nigeria: adobe had 5.5 h (11.00 h and 16.30 h) of tem- blocks had 4 h (12.00 h and 16.00 h) Ojo (2011)
wall versus sandcrete perature below 31.6 1C (ambient out- below 31.6 1C (ambient outdoor
blocks door temperature) temperature)

using wattle-and-daub instead of brick walls is enormous As shown in Fig. 2 and Table 2, cost-saving on building
that it can conveniently fund high quality galvanized iron components translate to cost saving on the whole building.
sheet roofing (Sanya, 2012). Total cost of a house built with ISSB is 75% less than one built
524
Table 4 Reducing cement use in housing construction means lower carbon emission.Source: Adapted from Kintingu (2009).
Brick/Block type No of Units in Cement used in produc- Cement used in mor- Total cement (in Tonnes of car-
182 m2 tion (in tonnes)
ISSB (150 mm) 6000 3.0
Conventional Block 1 1638 4.1
(150 mm)
Conventional Block 2 2548 6.4
(230 mm)
with masonry wall (Gichuchi, 2012). In another situation, a
whole house is 33.3% and 42.9% cheaper when CSSB is used
instead of industrially-fired, concrete blocks respectively
(Kuchena and Usiri, 2009b).
There are a few instances where earthen materials are
more expensive than the conventional building materials. In
Northern Nigeria, ‘the cost of laying 4 units of interlocking
blocks is 36.6% higher than the cost of laying a unit of
conventional sandcrete block’ (Waziri et al., 2014:98). This
higher cost contradicts Adedeji's (2011) analysis of projects
in Southern Nigeria. He showed that using interlocking
blocks (dry masonry) saved US$830, translating to 60%
cost-savings over sandcrete blocks. In Mombasa, Kenya,
higher transportation cost is associated with ISSB compared
with conventional materials (Mwangi, 2013). Architects and
home owners in Kumasi, Ghana thinks burnt clay bricks
involve ‘excessive cost implications’ (Baiden, 2014:4).
These higher costs might be the result of scarcity of skilled
personnel, market monopoly in the production of ISSB and
high import duty on brick-making machine.
We identify a limitation in literature dealing with cost-
saving and economic advantages and disadvantages. None of
the cost estimates reported include a life cycle assessment
(LCA) or life cycle cost-analysis (LCCA). None emanated
from long-term monitoring or longitudinal assessments
which tend to be more reliable than desktop simulation,
laboratory texts or once-off experimental projects. These
are significant knowledge and data gaps.
3.2. Thermal comfort advantages
There is unison in literature that building with earthen
materials is good for thermal comfort. Table 3 provides
summary of the thermal comfort advantages in terms of
thermal conductivity, resistivity and diffusivity, indoor and
outdoor temperature as well as cooling and heating loads.
This is evident in studies emanating from Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso (Persson, 2014), Sudan (Adam and Agib, 2001),
Eastern Cape, South Africa (Makaka and Meyer, 2006) and
Ibadan, Nigeria (Lawal and Ojo, 2011) and outside Africa
(See for example, Oti et al., 2009; Bui et al., 2011; Palme
et al., 2012). It is clear that thermal properties of earthen
materials are very suitable for building in Africa and the
tropics at large.
Being a poor conductor of heat, earthen materials (e.g.
sun-dried blocks, rammed earth) absorb heat very slowly in
the hot afternoons while the room interior remains cool.
The heat accumulated is slowly dissipated at night, ensuring
warm interiors during cold harmattan/winter. Hydraform
O.B. Adegun, Y.M.D. Adedeji
taring (in tonnes) tonnes) bon emitted
– 3.0 2.7
0.9 5.0 4.5
1.8 8.2 7.4
blocks, a popular example of ISSB, possess these character-
istics of absorbing and holding heat. As a result, the product
is three times more efficient than sandcrete blocks and
almost twice more efficient than industrially-fired clay
bricks, in terms of thermal insulation (Engineering Nigeria
Limited, 2009).
Result that contradicts the aforementioned can be found
in Alausa et al.’s (2013) work. Based on laboratory tests of
fresh laterite and concrete block samples from Ago-Iwoye
(Nigeria), they found that laterite-mud is less thermally
comfortable compared with concrete blocks. The experi-
mental results indicated that ‘concrete-block has a higher
potential for heat resistivity and therefore has better heat
insulating capability than laterite-mud’ (Alausa et al., 2013
:1). This is the only publication, of all accessed, showing
that an earthen material is less thermally comfortable.
3.3. Energy advantages
The studies accessed agree that earthen materials are
recyclable, relatively clean to produce because the process
involves little or no fossil fuel (Abanda et al., 2014;
Elkhalifa, 2011; Dabaieh, 2014; Atolagbe and Fadamiro,
2014). They are thus environmentally-friendly (See details
in Tables 4 and 5). Up to 30% less quantity of water is
consumed in the production of simple or stabilized blocks
compared to other conventional walling materials (Oyelami
and Van Rooy, 2016).
While evaluating earthen architecture in Uganda, Sanya
(2012) found that simple techniques such as wattle-and-
daub, cob and adobe are cleaner in comparison with
stabilised earth blocks because of the absence or small
quantity of cement used. From a Tanzanian study, Kintingu
(2009) shows that using ISSB translates to 2.8 t cement
reduction for a 182 m2 house (See more in Table 4). About
2 kg of CO2 is emitted while producing 25 kg of Ordinary
Portland Cement (Browne, 2009) or up to 900 kg per tonne
(Kruse, 2004). Cement reduction therefore cuts back on
carbon emission and embodied energy in housing
construction.
3.4. Many advantages, but low uptake
Despite the afore-mentioned cost and environmental advan-
tages, uptake of earthen materials for housing construction
in Africa in the recent past is poor. Literature shows that the
quantity of houses being made of earthen materials is
dwindling. Of the 2.9 million housing units built between
1994 and 2009 in South Africa, only 17 000 were constructed
Review of economic and environmental benefits of earthen materials for housing in Africa 525

using alternative or innovative systems such as earthen

al. Cement-block house uses 1.5X more

energy; emits 1.7X more CO2 than

Mud house emits less GHG. Marginal gap

and Production of earthen materials require

between GHG of CSSB and cement-
materials (Human Settlements Review, 2010). In Botswana,
the 1991 national Census shows that about 45.8% of houses
had earthen walls compared to about 50% in cement-based
materials. Ten years later, the 2001 Census indicates that
earthen walls had dropped to only 24% while cement-based
ones rose to 70% (CSO, 1994; CSO, 2003; Lyamuya and Alam,
2013). In Tanzania, walls made from un-burnt mud bricks
reduced from 25.4% in 1991/92 to 23.3% in 2000/2001 while
houses built with mud and poles also reduced from 43% in
1971 to 19.4% in 2001 (Moriarty, 1980; Mehta and Bridwell,

block house

less energy
mud-brick.
2005). Recently built houses are made of bricks derived
Remarks

from imported materials and components (Mukiibi, 2011;

Moosha and Moosha, 2012; Mercer, 2014).
Low uptake is attributable to some factors. With the
Fadamiro (2005) absence of national standards, earthen construction is
regarded as unapproved and un-regulated (Burnet, 2007).
Mud brick emits 146.2 kg of GHG, Cement brick emits 5021.3 kg of Elkhalifa (2011)

This makes accessing financial support (bank loan, govern-

et

ment subsidy, grants etc.) difficult. Associating earthen

Production energy: earthen versus Earthen materials use up to 0.3 MJ/ Cement blocks use between 0.8 and Atolagbe

structures with poverty and primitiveness (Bosman et al.,

137934.91 MJ (2007.8 MJ/m2) and 292326.81 MJ (3065.51 MJ/m2) and Abanda
Source

15665.56 kg CO2 (228.03 kg CO2/m2) 37829.19 kg CO2 (396.7 kg CO2/m2) (2014)

2009), scarcity of earthen products in the market and poor

inter-generational transmission of earthen construction
technologies are some other factors (Fillipi, 2006; Omole
and Bako, 2013). Literature shows that the level of aware-
ness on earthen materials is relatively low. Several authors
are unanimous about the need to improve awareness about
the benefits of earthen construction (Hadjri et al., 2007;
Alagbe, 2010; Sameh, 2014). Bobbo et al. (2015) recom-
mends incorporating Earth Construction Techniques into the
educational curriculum in Nigeria. Based on a delphi survey
of experts, Zami (2011) identifies the use of public media as
Other types

most favoured method of public awareness.

3.5 MJ/Kg

In addition, low uptake of earthen construction methods

is linked to poor acceptability, a problem reported in
GHG

Uganda (Owino et al., 2014), Ghana - where patronage of

earthen materials is at less than 2% of new construction
(Danquah et al., 2013) and South Africa (Bosman and Van
der Westhuizen, 2014b). The main concerns (and disadvan-
Comparison on energy used in the material production.

tages) are about earthen materials’ durability and strength.

while CSSB emits 4661.3 kg

Climatic and environmental factors like rain, solar radia-

tion, wind usually influences the gradual or speedy degrada-
tion of earthen materials. For instance, if water percolates
Earthen material

into or through an earthen wall, the strength and durability

reduces. If rain falls on it, the beauty fades (Guettala et al.,
2006; Ipinge, 2012; Alam et al., 2015). Changing climate
aggravates these impacts (Bosman and Van der Westhuizen,
2014a).
In response to this major drawback, chemical additives
Kg

and binders like cement, bitumen, gypsum and lime are

GHG emissions: Mud-brick versus
Embodied Energy and CO2 emis-
sion: Mud-brick versus cement-

added into the soil mix to protect the brick from moisture
decomposition and deterioration. Synthetic and natural
CSSB versus cement-block

materials such as straw, polystyrene, saw dust, wood pulp,

coconut fibre, jute and rubber are usually added to stabilise
earthen materials (Danso et al., 2015; Alam et al., 2015;
Sharma et al., 2016). Overall cost of earth building may
increase when amount spent for protection from the ele-
block house

ments (e.g. plastering, longer roof overhang), reinforcing or

stabilisation is included (Egenti et al., 2013). Discussion on
cement
Table 5

the types and results of different strengthening additives

and stabilizing materials is beyond the scope of this paper.
526
4. Conclusion and reccommendations
This review has shown advantages of different types of
earthen construction materials in terms of construction cost
and costs to the environment. While it appears that
stakeholders are relatively aware of these advantages, the
uptake in housing construction is low. Poor durability and
strength are one of the main reasons. Future research
should consider how to improve durability and strength of
different earthen materials while keeping overall cost low.
So far, earthen materials are mainly used for wall construc-
tion. Research is needed to explore the possibility of using it
in roofing, flooring and finishing - for broader application of
the cost and environmental benefits.
Based on this review, we believe that the following
specific recommendations can support the uptake of
earthen materials in housing construction.
 Standardisation of the material and components, in line
with global trends. Creation of national standards and
other local institutional regulatory apparatus are
necessary.
 Skills training is necessary to reverse the poor transmis-
sion of earthen construction techniques to the new
generation of builders.
 Areas –1991Population and Housing Census, Gaborone Govern-
Promoting small-scale industrial specialisation (in situ or
off-site) in the production of earthen materials to make it
available in the market. It can generate employment
opportunities, thus boosting local economies.
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