Afghanistan

Constructive Voices · Country Data Report

Green Building in Afghanistan: what actually works, and what the numbers say

In a country where domestic electricity generation runs at roughly 250 megawatts and most families burn coal or scrap to survive the winter, green building is not a certification exercise. It is a question of whether a house holds heat, and whether it stays standing.

Constructive Voices · Originally published 7 September 2023 by Jackie De Burca · Rebuilt as a data report, August 2026 · Reading time approx. 16 minutes

Two events since this article was first written have changed what the phrase "green building in Afghanistan" ought to mean.

The first is the collapse of international assistance. The United States, which had accounted for more than 43% of the $1.72 billion contributed to Afghanistan in 2024, dismantled USAID and terminated its programmes in the country. By early 2026, the UN's $1.71 billion appeal had received around 10% of what it asked for. Almost every project the original version of this article cited as an example of Afghan green building was donor-funded.

The second is the earthquake of 31 August 2025 in Kunar, Nangarhar and Laghman, which killed roughly 2,000 people and destroyed or damaged more than 8,300 homes — nearly all of them built from the mud brick that is also, by a considerable margin, the lowest-carbon housing material in the country.

Green building Afghanistan — children and the prospect of a greener built environment — Green building in Afghanistan is a housing and health question before it is an environmental one. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

250 MWDomestic electricity generation, against imports of roughly 800 MW

644,000Residential homes in Kabul, nearly all heated by solid fuel in winter

18.2°CAverage indoor temperature achieved in monitored passive solar houses

8,300+Homes destroyed or damaged in the August 2025 earthquake

01 · THE ACTUAL PROBLEMWinter, not carbon

Start with the thing that kills people. Kabul sits in a bowl ringed by mountains. In deep winter the air near the ground goes cold and still, warm air sits above it, and the whole city is sealed under what residents call a smog dome — a thermal inversion that holds a month's worth of smoke at head height. The worst of it falls between mid-December and mid-January.

Under that dome are more than 644,000 residential homes, plus apartment blocks, offices and institutions, and almost all of them are burning something. Coal, firewood, coal dust pressed into cheap blocks known locally as rabat, and — when nothing else is affordable — plastic, rubber and leather. Roughly half of Kabul households cannot afford enough fuel to heat their homes properly, which is precisely why the fuel of last resort gets burned.

Green building Afghanistan — city of Kabul — Green building in Kabul Afghanistan is a housing and health question before it is an environmental one. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

The health arithmetic is not marginal. The Health Effects Institute's State of Global Air work attributed some 51,600 deaths in Afghanistan to air pollution in a single year, a rate of around 406 per 100,000 — among the worst anywhere. The World Health Organization has estimated that environmental risk factors contribute to about a quarter of all deaths in the country.

In Afghanistan, insulation is a public health intervention that happens to reduce emissions.

This reframes the whole subject. A better-insulated house in Kabul is not primarily a carbon measure. It is a measure that reduces how much rabat a family has to buy, which reduces what everyone downwind breathes, which reduces respiratory admissions in a health system that lost roughly 450 clinics to the funding collapse. Carbon is a by-product of the benefit, not the point of it.

02 · THE EVIDENCEPassive solar, and what it measurably does

The strongest documented green building intervention in Afghanistan is also the least glamorous: a glazed veranda on the south-facing wall of an ordinary house, capturing sun during the day and releasing it from the thermal mass of the wall at night. The French NGO Geres has been refining the model since the 2000s, first in Bamyan and then at scale in Kabul through the Kabul Green Homes Project.

What makes it worth reporting is that it was monitored rather than merely claimed. Over the 2013–14 winter, fuel consumption and indoor temperature were tracked in passive solar houses against a control group.

Table 1 · Measured performance of passive solar houses, Kabul
Indicator	Result	Why it matters
Energy saving vs control houses	23%	Direct reduction in solid fuel purchased and burned
Emissions avoided	0.37 tCO₂e per house per year	Small per house; material at city scale
Indoor temperature increase	+1.43°C	Comfort and health gain, not just cost saving
Average indoor temperature reached	18.22°C	Crosses the WHO minimum guideline of 18°C
Fuel saving, best technology combinations	30–60%	Verandas plus insulation packages, per the Geres catalogue

Source: Geres monitoring of passive solar houses in Kabul, 2013–14 winter, published in peer-reviewed evaluation of avoided emissions in LDCs; Geres energy-saving solutions catalogue for Kabul households.

That 18.22°C figure is the one to hold onto. It is not an impressive number in a European context. In a Kabul winter that reaches −20°C, in a house that would otherwise sit well below the threshold the WHO considers safe, it is the difference between a habitable room and a dangerous one — and it was achieved without a boiler, a grid connection or a subsidy on running costs.

Green building Afghanistan — Passive solar retrofit works on the existing stock rather than requiring new construction. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

The delivery model matters more than the technology

The veranda is not a difficult piece of engineering. What made the Kabul programme durable was that it was built as a market rather than a giveaway. Local artisans were trained to build and sell the technology; households paid for it.

Table 2 · Kabul Green Homes Project, reported delivery
Measure	Reported
Kabul districts covered	15
Houses equipped with energy-saving solutions	4,000+
Small enterprises and craftsmen trained	132
Of those, actively trading in the technology	79

Source: Geres project reporting for the Kabul Green Homes Project. Figures are as reported by the implementing organisation and have not been independently audited.

The most persuasive evidence, though, is not in any project report. In Bamyan, where Geres first piloted the design, families have replicated passive solar houses on their own, without external support or subsidy — a technology copied because it obviously works, in an economy where nothing is copied for any other reason. One documented household had been buying around sixty donkey loads of shrub fuel a year before the retrofit. Afterwards, it did not need to.

That has a second-order effect the emissions accounting misses. Shrub for winter fuel is uprooted from common rangeland. Every house that stops harvesting it is a house that stops degrading pasture — a green building intervention that shows up as a biodiversity outcome.

Energy-efficient buildings Afghanistan — Energy-efficient buildings in Afghanistan. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

The regulatory gap

A 2024 simulation study across nine Afghan cities found something that ought to be embarrassing and is instead simply a fact: Afghanistan's building sector has no tailored energy efficiency regulations at all. The same study divided the country into three practical climate zones with different optimal orientations.

Table 3 · Climate zones and optimal building orientation
Zone	Representative cities	Optimal orientation
Subarctic	Bamyan and the central highlands	South-southeast
Continental	Kabul and similar	South
Hot-arid	Southern and western lowlands	Least sensitive to orientation

Source: study of building orientation and residential energy performance across nine Afghan cities using BEopt simulation, 2024. Bamyan showed the highest heating demand of the cities modelled.

Orientation costs nothing at the design stage and cannot be retrofitted afterwards. It is the single cheapest energy measure available to Afghanistan, and there is currently no mechanism requiring anyone to use it.

03 · THE MATERIALS QUESTIONThe greenest material is also the one that collapsed

Mud brick is close to an ideal low-carbon material. It is dug locally, needs no firing, has excellent thermal mass for a climate with wide day-night swings, and returns to the ground at end of life. It is what most Afghans build with, and any honest account of Afghan vernacular construction has to start by acknowledging how well it performs on every environmental measure.

It also killed roughly two thousand people in a single night.

Table 4 · Earthquake of 31 August 2025 — Kunar, Nangarhar and Laghman
Measure	Assessed
Magnitude / depth	M6.0 / ~8 km
Lives lost	1,992 (1,022 women)
Injured	3,631 (1,830 women)
Homes damaged or destroyed	8,300+
Damages and losses	US$86.8m
Assessed recovery need	US$128.8m

Source: Joint Rapid Recovery Needs Assessment, led by the United Nations with UNDP, the EU, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and 14 partners. Taliban authorities gave a higher toll of 2,205; some analyses estimate up to 2,800. The JRRNA recommends a build-back-better approach.

The gendered split in those figures is not incidental. The quake struck just before midnight, when women and children were indoors and men were more likely to be outside or in lighter structures. Housing quality is a gender-differentiated risk in Afghanistan, and unreinforced masonry is the mechanism.

Renewable materials Afghanistan — Renewable materials in Afghanistan. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

What this means for material recommendations

The generic sustainable-materials list — bamboo, reclaimed timber, recycled plastic lumber — does not survive contact with Afghan conditions. Bamboo does not grow there in usable quantity. Reclaimed timber is scarce in a country that has lost most of its forest cover, and salvaging it competes directly with fuel demand. Plastic lumber has to be imported into an economy with severe foreign exchange constraints.

The realistic material agenda is narrower and considerably more useful:

Table 5 · Material options assessed against Afghan conditions
Material or technique	Carbon	Seismic	Availability
Unreinforced mud brick / adobe, as currently built	Low	Fails	Universal
Adobe with timber ring beams and corner reinforcement	Low	Improved	Needs skills transfer, not new supply chains
Stabilised or compressed earth block	Low-medium	Improved	Requires cement and press equipment
Confined masonry with reinforced concrete frame	High	Good	Cost and cement import dependent
Bamboo, reclaimed timber, plastic lumber	Low	Varies	Not available at scale

Assessment by Constructive Voices, drawing on post-earthquake damage reporting and established seismic retrofit practice for earthen construction. Ratings are indicative and not a substitute for site-specific structural engineering advice.

The second row is where the opportunity sits. Reinforcing earthen construction with timber ring beams, corner ties and improved roof connections is a well-established body of practice; it keeps the low-carbon material, keeps the local supply chain, keeps the thermal mass, and addresses the failure mode that killed people in Kunar. It is a training problem rather than a materials-import problem — which, in an economy that has just lost most of its external funding, is the only kind of problem worth designing around.

The choice is not between mud brick and concrete. It is between mud brick as it is built now and mud brick built better.

04 · ENERGYThe gap that shapes everything else

Any discussion of energy-efficient buildings in Afghanistan has to be set against the supply position, because it explains why demand-side measures matter so disproportionately here.

Table 6 · Afghanistan electricity position
Measure	Figure
Domestic generation capacity	~250 MW
Imported from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iran	~800 MW
Share of supply imported	~80%
Annual spend on electricity imports	~US$280m
Import tariff range	$0.02–$0.085 / kWh
Stated national requirement	6,000–7,000 MW
Installed solar capacity (IRENA)	~164 MW
Solar home systems installed	100,000+
Average solar irradiance	5–6 kWh/m²/day
Sunshine days per year	~300

Sources: Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat statements as reported by regional media; IRENA installed capacity data; published solar resource assessments. Import and demand figures vary between official statements and should be read as approximate.

A country importing four-fifths of its electricity at up to 8.5 US cents a kilowatt-hour, with peak evening shortages and winter curtailment when its suppliers need the power themselves, has an extremely strong economic case for reducing building energy demand. Every kilowatt-hour or kilogram of coal a building does not need is one that does not have to be bought across a border or dug out of an unfiltered mine.

In November 2025 Uzbekistan agreed to continue supply into 2026 and to invest in a 500 kV line intended to raise import capacity to between 800 and 1,000 MW. In July 2026 a five-year national electricity development plan was approved, covering 25 generation projects, 44 transmission projects, 42 substation projects and 34 new distribution projects. Whether those materialise is another question; Afghan infrastructure announcements have a long history of outrunning delivery. But the direction is more import capacity and more grid, not less — which makes building-level efficiency the cheapest lever still available.

Bamyan Solar Plant — The Bamyan solar plant. Distributed solar has reached far more Afghan households than utility-scale projects have. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

05 · THE PROJECTSWhat is real, and what was never a green building project

The original version of this article listed eight examples of Afghan green building. Some hold up. Some do not, and saying which is more useful than repeating the list.

Table 7 · Reassessment of commonly cited examples
Cited example	Status	Assessment
Passive solar houses (Geres, Bamyan and Kabul)	Verified	Monitored performance data, thousands of houses, self-replicating in Bamyan
Aga Khan Trust for Culture conservation work	Verified	90+ historic buildings restored using traditional materials and technique; vocational training centre in Kabul
Bamyan solar plant	Verified	Generation, not a building; displaced diesel locally
Solar home systems	Verified	Over 100,000 installed, largely off-grid and household-financed
USAID infrastructure projects	Ended	Agency dismantled in 2025; programmes in Afghanistan terminated
Green Village Kabul	Withdrawn	A fortified compound for international contractors, not a green building programme — see below
LEED certification efforts	Unverified	No substantiating record found
"GATE" training initiative	Unverified	No substantiating record found

Assessment by Constructive Voices, August 2026. "Unverified" means no primary source could be located, not that the project definitively did not exist.

Why Green Village has been removed

Green Village was a heavily guarded compound in eastern Kabul housing international contractors, security firms and some aid organisations, with on-site amenities including a clinic, restaurants and a spa. It sat beside Pul-e Charkhi, a poor neighbourhood. It was attacked repeatedly. A vehicle bomb in January 2019 killed around 22 people; a tractor bomb in September that year killed 16 and wounded 119, almost all of them civilians living in the surrounding streets, whose houses were shredded by the blast. Residents afterwards climbed the wall and set part of the compound alight.

Whatever solar panels or water recycling it contained, it is not an example of sustainable building in Afghanistan. It is an example of what the internationally funded built environment looked like from outside its blast walls, and including it in a list of green buildings misdescribes both the compound and the period.

Where the durable expertise sits

The Aga Khan Development Network has committed over US$1 billion in Afghanistan since 2002 and reported reaching more than four million people across 20 provinces in 2025. Its cultural programmes in Kabul, Herat, Balkh and Badakhshan have restored more than ninety historic buildings, using lime, timber, brick and earth technique, and have trained Afghan craftspeople through a vocational centre in Kabul.

That work is usually filed under heritage. It should be filed under green building. Conservation of earthen and masonry architecture is the largest sustained transfer of low-carbon construction skill that has happened in Afghanistan, and it is one of the few programmes still operating at scale after the funding collapse.

Sustainable construction Afghanistan — Sustainable construction in Afghanistan. Image: Constructive Voices with Canva Pro.

06 · THE FUNDING CLIFFWhat the sector can still do without donors

The original article treated aid dependency as an ambiguity — funding with strings attached that might or might not prioritise green building. That framing is out of date. The funding largely stopped.

Around 83% of USAID grants were cancelled in early 2025, and US programmes in Afghanistan were terminated outright. Other donors followed. Of the UN's $1.71 billion appeal for 2026, roughly a tenth had been received by the spring. Nearly 23 million Afghans are assessed as needing assistance.

The realistic conclusion is that any green building strategy for Afghanistan which depends on international project finance is now a strategy with no delivery mechanism. What survives is what households will pay for themselves, and what can be transferred as skill rather than subsidy.

What still works under these conditions

Household-financed retrofit. The passive solar veranda succeeded because artisans sold it and families bought it. It needs a market, not a grant pipeline.
Seismic reinforcement of earthen construction. Timber ring beams and corner ties use materials already on site; the constraint is knowledge, and knowledge does not require foreign exchange.
Orientation and layout. Free at design stage, impossible to retrofit, and currently unregulated. The cheapest energy policy available.
Craft skills through conservation. Heritage restoration programmes are functioning low-carbon construction academies and should be recognised as such.
Distributed solar. Over 100,000 solar home systems went in largely without a national programme, because the economics worked at household scale.

07 · QUESTIONSFrequently asked

Is green building realistic in Afghanistan at all?

It depends entirely on the definition. Certified low-energy new-build is not realistic in the current economy. Reducing how much solid fuel a house burns in winter, and making earthen houses survive a moderate earthquake, are both realistic and both have working precedents in the country.

Why is mud brick described as both the greenest and the most dangerous material?

Because it is both. Unfired earth has very low embodied carbon, excellent thermal mass and a local supply chain. Unreinforced, it also performs badly in earthquakes, which is why the August 2025 quake destroyed more than 8,300 homes. The answer is reinforcement, not replacement.

What is a passive solar veranda?

A glazed structure built against the south-facing wall of an existing house. It captures solar heat during the day, which is stored in the wall's mass and released at night. In monitored Kabul houses it produced a 23% energy saving and raised average indoor temperature to just above the WHO minimum of 18°C.

Does Afghanistan have building energy efficiency regulations?

No. A 2024 study across nine Afghan cities found the building sector lacks tailored energy efficiency regulations entirely, which is why measures as basic as optimal building orientation are not applied consistently.

Has the withdrawal of international aid ended green building work?

It has ended most donor-funded programmes. What continues is work that households finance themselves — retrofit technologies sold by local artisans, and solar home systems — along with conservation programmes that retained their funding. The practical lesson is that skill transfer outlasts project finance.

Methodology and sourcing

Passive solar performance figures are drawn from Geres monitoring of houses in Kabul over the 2013–14 winter, published in a peer-reviewed evaluation of avoided emissions in least developed countries, and from the organisation's technology catalogue for Kabul households. Project delivery figures are as reported by Geres and have not been independently audited.

Earthquake figures are taken from the Joint Rapid Recovery Needs Assessment led by the United Nations with UNDP, the EU, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Where Taliban authorities and independent assessments give different tolls, both are shown.

Electricity figures are as reported by Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat and Afghan energy officials through regional media, cross-checked against IRENA capacity data where possible; they are claims rather than audited statistics and different official statements give different demand figures. Aid and humanitarian funding figures are from UN OCHA reporting and published donor analysis.

The material assessment in Table 5 and the project reassessment in Table 7 are Constructive Voices' own classifications and are identified as such at the point of use. Nothing in this report constitutes structural engineering advice; seismic reinforcement of any specific building requires qualified local assessment.

Originally written by Jackie De Burca, published 7 September 2023. Rebuilt as a Constructive Voices country data report, August 2026. Photography retained from the original article.

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