The Climate Agenda

Action Through Integration

Buniyaad Collective

The Need

Uttar Pradesh's brick kiln sector is a major source of employment and a major source of emissions at once; it sustains millions of seasonal, informal workers even as it comes under growing pressure to shift to cleaner production technology. That pressure exposes a structural problem: kiln owners, workers, unions, pollution boards, and district administrations each experience this transition differently, and approach it from opposing vantage points as a result. Without shared evidence, these differences harden into mistrust, and mistrust stalls the very cooperation a just transition depends on. Closing that gap requires a platform that doesn't impose a transition from the top down, but builds consensus from the lived, local reality of the people the transition will actually affect.

Our Collective

Buniyaad Collective is a multi-stakeholder platform established under the Buniyaad Initiative in 2023. It brings together brick kiln owners, the Brick Kiln Association, workers’ unions, civil society organisations, Gram Pradhans, artists, and expert institutions across more than 15 cities in Uttar Pradesh.

 

The Buniyaad Action Group (BAG) provides strategic direction to the Collective and is leading the development of an action plan to inform policy and advance a just transition in the brick kiln industry.

What We Do

  1. Shape grounds-up narrative through the Udaan Fellowship, training young women associated with the brick kiln industry as citizen journalists reporting on climate, gender, and labour.
  2. Publish Buniyaadi Khabar, a community newspaper carrying authored pieces, on-ground reportage, and interactive storytelling.
  3. Run worker welfare workshops and registration camps, connecting workers to schemes and structures such as BOCW, MGNREGA, and PRI.
  4. Consolidate and prioritise policy recommendations for cleaner brick production, drafted collaboratively with owners, workers, and technical experts.
  5. Engage government departments, including Labour, Environment, Health, Panchayati Raj, Skill Development, and MSME, to build intent for a UP Brick Kiln Action Plan.
  6. Partner with technical and research institutions, including IIT Kanpur, to benchmark cleaner production standards.

Our Impact

  1. 200+ multistakeholder members across 15+ cities of Uttar Pradesh, bringing owners, workers, and institutions onto one platform.
  2. 118 recommendations consolidated over two years, with 66 prioritised and taken to ten government departments.
  3. Citizen Charter have been prepared.
  4. 10 worker registration camps reaching 173 workers, and three welfare workshops training 89 participants.
  5. 300,000+ people reached through mixed-media storytelling and Buniyaadi Khabar.
  6. Trust built among traditionally opposing stakeholders, opening a new, shared perspective on just transition.

Join/Connect

We invite kiln owners, workers, government partners, and researchers to join the Buniyaad Collective in shaping a fair,

technology-led transition for Uttar Pradesh’s brick kiln sector.