Episode Intro:

Ross Chambless: In September 2025, the Wilkes Center awarded its annual Wilkes Climate Launch Prize to the organization Build up Nepal.

Build up Nepal has developed a new approach to building homes for very low-income Nepalese using bricks that are not made by burning coal, but instead are compressed, and made with locally available materials, and with minimal cement. The technology is becoming a much more affordable, safer – and cleaner – design approach for tens of thousands of Nepalese families who lost their homes in destructive earthquakes.

I spoke with Björn Söderberg, the co-founder of Build up Nepal, when he visited Utah to accept the award.  He talked about being a social entrepreneur and why Build up Nepal is successfully disrupting Nepal's conventional homebuilding industry. Söderberg, originally from Sweden, has lived in Nepal for the past 25 years. This conversation offers much wisdom for aspiring climate tech entrepreneurs.  

Interview Summary:

Build up Nepal, co‑founded by Björn Söderberg after the 2015 earthquakes, produces compressed interlocking earth bricks made from local soil, sand, and minimal cement using manual presses; the approach delivers cheaper, stronger, earthquake‑ and flood‑resistant homes, cuts brick‑making emissions dramatically, creates local micro‑enterprises and jobs, and has been validated when buildings survived the 2023 quake—now the organization is scaling a network of local entrepreneurs and system‑level training to meet urgent reconstruction needs and to enable rapid, climate‑friendly replication across the Global South.

Episode webpage:
wilkescenter.utah.edu/podcast/30-build-up-nepal/