Low Cost, Low Carbon, but no Data: Kenya's Struggle to Develop the Availability of Performance Data for Building Products

Selecting building materials with a view to take triple bottom lines into account has been recognized as a necessity in transitioning the construction industry towards a sustainable trajectory. Kenya's State Department for Housing and Urban Development has compiled a list of 18 Appropriate Building Materials and Technologies suitable for affordable housing developments, from which walling materials were selected and complemented with conventional products. Our findings show that <20% Kenya-specific data could be obtained, and ∼50% of data is missing to make claims regarding the performance of alternative materials. To close the data gap, a policy pathway of requesting Environmental Product Declarations is described for Sub-Saharan-Africa.