On 10 January 2020 in Ha Noi, the “Promotion of Non-Fired Brick Production and Utilization in Viet Nam”Project Management Unit (PMU) had a meeting with the Final Evaluation Mission of the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) to discuss the achievements of the Project and how to maintain the sustainability, spread the achieved results in the near future.

Facing the adverse effects of the production of fired clay bricks (FCB) and the advantages of non-fired bricks (NFB), in recent years, the Government has issued many policies to promote production and use of NFBs. A number of localities across the country actively implemented these policies by basically eliminating the FCB production facilities and putting the NFBs into many construction works in their area, contributing to minimizing environmental pollution.

In recent years, the real estate market always had unpredictable changes causing many difficulties and challenges for construction businesses, especially businesses producing non-fired building materials (NFBM). Green, sustainable and environmentally friendly development is an inevitable trend for the construction industry. Accordingly, the use of NFBMs to gradually replace fired clay bricks is the optimal solution when limiting the use of clay and coal, two non-renewable resources, contributing to environmental protection, energy saving and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The production technology of NFBMs also makes use of wastes from industries such as ash, slag, stone dust ... to make useful products, thereby contributing to a large reduction of industrial solid wastes.

“To promote the production and use of non-fired bricks in Viet Nam, it is necessary to continue implementing consistently the solutions: Improving mechanisms and policies to encourage investment, encourage use, strengthen management, especially promote the propaganda of economic, social and environmental advantages and benefits of using environmentally friendly materials; disseminating knowledge and contents related to production and use of these materials to the investors, contractors, design consultants, supervisors and the people”, Mr. Vo Quang Diem - Specialist of the Project “Promotion of None-fired Brick Production and Utilization in Viet Nam”, Former Vice Director General of Department of Construction Materials - Ministry of Construction emphasized in the discussion with reporter from Industry and Trade Newspaper.

Curing process always plays an important role in ensuring the quality of non-fired brick (NFB) products, specifically strength development and volumetric stability, therefore determining the quality of construction works. Thus, compliance with curing process during production and use of NFBs is essential. The reporter had an interview with Associate Professor PhD Bach Dinh Thien - Director of Research and Application for Tropical Building Materials Institute, National University of Civil Engineering on this issue.

Non-fired building materials have been used in many construction works and their market share have increased significantly. The social community has paid attention, changed the awareness in production and use of non-fired building materials.

As one of the businesses receiving the support of the Project “Promotion of Non-Fired Brick Production and Utilization in Viet Nam” (Under the Ministry of Science and Technology) on technical consultancy to improve energy efficiency and production efficiency of non-fired building materials in general and panels, autoclaved aerated concrete bricks (AAC) in particular, over the past time, the products of Bac Ninh Viglacera AAC JSC have been used by large-scale construction works in Viet Nam as well as exported abroad, creating a Vietnamese brand in the field of building materials, towards green buildings in the future.

Treating ash and slag wastes from thermal power plants as raw materials for production of building materials opens up a new direction because these are abundant sources of raw materials for production of non-fired bricks, which contributes to solving environmental problems, also brings high economic efficiency for users.

From 22 to 29 November 2019, the Evaluation Team of the Project "Promotion of Non-Fired Brick Production and Utilization in Viet Nam" paid a working visit to non-fired brick (NFB) production businesses which are demonstration and replication models of the Project to evaluate the results, impacts and lessons learned from technical assistance to these models.

On 12 December 2019 in Ha Noi, the Viet Nam Association for Building Materials (VABM) in collaboration with the Promotion of Non-Fired Brick Production and Utilization in Viet Nam Project Management Unit organized the Building Material Forum (BMF2019) with the theme “Honouring best practices in production and utilization of non-fired building materials - Green materials for green life”. The Forum was conducted with the guidance and sponsorship of the Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Science and Technology, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Viet Nam.