The construction industry is affected by factors that are forcing change. The demand for ‘sustainable’ construction was brought to the forefront by the adoption of the Kyoto protocol, which forces an appraisal of the energy efficiency and sustainability of materials selected for use within buildings. Moreover, the demand for competence, as outlined in the Egan Report with its focus on progress in the areas of the time, cost and quality of the construction process, is pushing the building industry towards the use of lean construction techniques. Lean methods that have been accepted so far have tended to be high-tech and industrialised and not necessarily environmentally friendly or sustainable. This paper considers the specific case of recycled brick as a sustainable material to which lean thinking may be applied. Further, the extent to which sustainability and lean thinking are mutually exclusive is explored. It is argued that lean thinking needs to merge with sustainability in construction in order to increase productivity to the higher levels of service demanded by both private and governmental clients of the industry.