Bricks: carbon footprint per tonne
Live factor value
241.8 kgCO2e per tonne
Source: UK DESNZ greenhouse-gas conversion factors, 2026 (revision 2). Factor set desnz-2026-r2.
Fired clay bricks carry roughly twice concrete's per-tonne footprint in the official DESNZ 2026 tables — the live figure is below — because every brick spends hours in a kiln at around 1,000 °C. At a typical 2.5 kg each, that works out to a bit over half a kilogram of CO2e per brick.
An average UK house uses on the order of ten thousand bricks, putting the brickwork alone in the several-tonnes range before mortar, roof or slab. Reclaimed bricks carry almost none of this — the kiln firing is already spent — which is why architectural salvage is one of construction's easiest embodied-carbon wins.
Worked example
A house's brickwork (~10,000 bricks ≈ 25 tonnes): 25 × 241.8 = 6,045 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free event calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the footprint of a single brick?
- Around 0.6 kg CO2e: the official per-tonne factor spread over a typical 2.5 kg fired clay brick. Reclaimed bricks avoid nearly all of it.