BC Materials

Mud bricks, plasters and paints from excavated soil

Every year in Belgium, 37 million tons of soil is excavated on construction sites, which is then left idle. Brussels-based BC Materials turns this (unpolluted) residual flow into Léém: a range of new building materials, circular in origin and destination,

Making construction industry more sustainable
Brick, steel and concrete are among the most CO2-intensive materials. Consequently, in Europe the construction sector is responsible for more than 40% of CO2 emissions, air pollution, resource depletion and waste. A complex problem to which, according to BC Materials, there is a simple solution.

BC Materials was founded five years ago by the founders of the Brussels architectural firm BC Architects. Their ambition: to replace standard building materials with clay building materials that are more sustainable and healthier. They gained inspiration from craftsmen in countries such as Burundi, Ethiopia and Morocco, after which they developed building materials for our Belgian context.

Léém
With Léém, BC Materials developed a range of circular building materials such as clay bricks (an alternative to bricks), clay plaster, paint and stem clay (a type of ecological concrete). The basis for these materials are mineral waste streams such as Brusselian sand, combined with clay. Loam is:

• Carbon neutral: earth is a local resource that does not require fossil fuels to be converted into building materials.
• Circular: the unpolluted earth is taken from urban construction sites and upcycled. In addition, the materials can be infinitely reused, e.g. a misplaced clay plaster can be redone with the same material.
• Innovative: BC Materials is a pioneer in Europe thanks to their exceptional knowledge of mixing and transforming different types of earth and scaling up production processes.