Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks for joining in.
Again, I don't want to paint a black and white picture over this subject.
Maybe I've been too much influenced by the sani-markets programs in Cambodian in which the foundation were the fact it could be reproduced locally.

My main concern is about monopoly and long term repayement for corporations' strat-up investment. In a few years time once unicef strongly helped Unilever control 80% of the soap market in the developping world, owning distribution points and import-export mechanisms ... It would be very sad if they suddenly rise their price and we would therefore see some NGO seeking funds to "subsidize soap delivery because it's too expensive for the people". These monopolies are extremly damageable for populations, Monsanto and its control of the seeds worldwide being probably the scariest.
I have no doubt that using the unilever non-ecological toilet additive was a sine qua non condition to finance the clean team program. Let's learn the maximum from their service delivery model, which can apply in many cities if proved viable, but I sincerly have little hope on what good things Unilever can bring ?

As everyone is often repeating in this forum, we need loads of innovative products and services. I'm glad WSUP oppened this door and I hope we'll be able to all learn from their experience. However, at the size of a country I beleive it will always be far more beneficial for the market (viability / adaptation / sustainability) and the users to make the maximum locally. Unlike mobile phones, toilets systems are almost all made of pretty simple materials (plastic / fiber / cement / soil / etc ...). I totally see it pertinent to import small pieces ( like the Sato latrine pan ) but I totally disagree on the idea of shipping the whole thing from china to save 2 cents. Add to that the poluting toilet additive they use, in the case of Clean team project, and I think the losses for local business and the carbon footprint generated makes the program overall questionable.

To finish, in Cambodia we realise that from a village to another different preferences were notable (tiles or not on the pan, 1 or 2 lined up pit, superstructure or not, complete service or minimum one, etc ...). The organic evolution of a market, where the mason lives less than 20 km from the client, is amazing. In just a few months, the products evoluted significantly, adapting to the area's preferences and much better penetrating it. The less production is centralized, I believe the more adapted will be the product, even from a village to the other.

Best,

Ben

Hi Ben,

Interesting things that are being discussed in this thread now, thanks to you, Kris and Simon so far. I just have a quick question back to you:
Even if the toilets that are used in the GhanaSan project in Ghana (I believe they now call it Clean Team Ghana rather) are manufactured in China and then transported: does that necessarily have to be a bad thing? Is it a "must" that they should be manufactured locally? I don't know if the mobile phone analogy holds but for mobile phones we don't care where they are produced, we are happy when people can use them to better their lives in low income countries. It's the service that they provide which we care about, not the number of jobs created in country X to make the mobile phones.

About the Clean Team project (WSUP) that you mentioned, we have a separate thread here for it:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/52-mob...al-sludge-management

Perhaps we should discuss further specifics about their project there?

Like you, I am also disappointed by the lack of responses by Clean Team when asked about that chemical that they add to the toilet (and other details). I have tried to encourage them via twitter and e-mail but the bottom line was (if I understood correctly) that they see it as a "business secret". Well, so be it. Whether this approach can be scaled up to reach hundreds of thousands of people, I don't know. I think it can only work if the local government is involved at the appropriate critical points.

By the way, this is the Clean Team Ghana website:
cleanteamtoilets.com/
(mind you, either there is something wrong with my browser or they don't have much information on their page)

This blog post that Alison linked to in her last post seems more interesting:
www.wsup.com/2014/05/12/the-kumasi-smell...rt-and-installation/

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear Simon,

I'm very glad you are back so we can follow this discussion.
I beleive same sorts of discussions were happening on mircrofinance discussion forums in the 90's. I can imagine two sides :
- The ones beleiving that if grameen bank made it profitable, all the worldwide banks should do it and everyone will profit from it : The poorests and the richests !
- The ones doubting about the goodwill of big international banks to keep the business "clean" !

I'm not saying microcredit is bad and I'm not a specialist but as an economist I guess you know well the question an the scandals worldwide on microcredits. Strong regulation is needed against these big corporation, this is I believe a big lesson of the past century.

Your recommandations are right in your reports, I can't disagree with that :
"Chemical and fragrance companies could be strategic partners to design better biodegradable bags and additives to contain waste. The design and manufacturing of the toilet itself could be improved by involving sanitary equipment manufacturers "

But when Unilever has been producing for a 100 years its cleaning products and never created a ecological one (please find just one) ... I can't fight doubting on their willingness to do as you said : "They could design better biodegradable bags and additives". Who is being "philosophical" then ?

In order to leave this theoretical debates on trust toward multinational, let's move forward. Please could you give me a your vision for the particular case of ghana-san project. Put it in 10 years time, give me your counter-picture of what I imagined previously :
"Toilets are built in China, and I guess toilet additive too, waste can not be treated yet out of a treatment plant, how therefore is it supporting local businesses?"

Thanks for these exchanges, best,

Ben

Dear Ben,

You are right to raise the point of externalities and long-run sustainability. We don't want to promote sanitation solutions that would create health or environmental hazards, and realize in 10 years that we don't know how to get rid of chemicals or empty pits. It has been and is still an issue with some sanitation programs. The reassuring news is that many others (including Clean Team) are working actively on improving their solutions to make them safe for consumers, non-demeaning for workers and environmentally sustainable in the long-run.

Regarding your broader point on working with large corporations, I think that it is more of a "philosophical" than a "technical" debate, and I would rather not answer in my Hystra capacity. Note however that I tend to agree with JK's point: large corporations are "amoral", in the sense that they could do good or bad (sometimes against the goodwill of their management!), and we should rather try to leverage their tremendous resources to serve social causes than blame them as a whole and miss this opportunity.

Simon Brossard
Hystra Consultant

Dear JK,

I'm with you and really don't want to alienate them, but we're still on a Sustainable sanitation Forum. We should be able to discuss here without manichaeism if Unilever having monopoles on soap all over the world is actually sustainable for the populations. Is it on the long term helping the cause ? Which is the ultimate goal of sanitation marketing = to make programs free of grants or subsidies.

I'm sure when green revolution arrived in developing countries with WB + IMF programs, pesticide industries, monsanto ... crops were just amazing the first decade, everyone was happy.

Please don't make me a "left side integrist", my wish is just to push them for more transparency. How awesome would be to have someone from Unicef asking in this forum to practicioners on the ground :
"Should Unicef keep advertising Unilever lifebuoy soap in 140 countries this year through the handwashing day ?" Probably everyone would say yes, maybe a guy working in Indonesia would tell us that all the misery in the island comes from Unilever deforstation. The discussion would be interesting because we would have a vision on all externalities.

Maybe only a few of us are interested in tehse subjects, but I have the feeling that there's an Omerta on criticising them, most of us being shy on critics because we could potentially get some funds from them one day.

What I'd love, is to animate the debate to know "Where is the yellow line". We had an interseting debate on the old ecosan-res, for example please answer me the following :
"You're working in closing the loop with agriculture right, so if Monsanto wants to green wahs a bit and offer you a few millions for your program, what would you do and whatever your choice is : why ?"

I was talking about the IFC project because being Kenyan based plastic factories is important, as much as the head quarters being in the country so they pay taxes there (which has to be confirmed though).
Imagine the ghanasan project is scaling up, please tell me if I'm wrong, millions of toilets built in China are arriving in ghana, millions of liters of toilet additive that can't be treated trhough composting are arriving from somewhere else probably poluting during the process and transport, the company is paying taxes in Holland or other tax heaven, etc ... Would you still confirm that this is a great opportunity for the long term ?

I've been working years in the biggest french companies and I know a bit how they work, the greenpeace case is a good example of the fact if no-one makes fuss then it's just business as usual. So we shouldn't underestimate the impact of the discussions we're having here, maybe if tens of bright sanitation activits are claiming some transparency on Multinationals participation to the sector, they will provide it gradually.

In the hope that free discussion and non-agressive point of views can be shared here, without being shy because somehow they('ll) finance your program.

Best,

Ben

I think an important point is that these multinationals are so huge in their operations that one part can do a lot of good while the other is very damaging the same time. Yes part of that is "green-washing", but by far not all of it.

They deserve criticism for much of that they do, but it does little good to alienate them completely, i.e. lets try to embrace them for the good they can actually do.

NGOs are historically very bad at bringing things to scale, and small businesses rarely have the "muscle" to make governments adjust unfavourable regulations/conditions. Both of which the multinationals are very good at (both negatively and positively).

Bonjour Simon,

First of all I'd like to thank you for joining this forum, particularly because you're from a business school background, and from the best of them. Most of us are practitioners, researchers, social workers, etc ... Thanks for bringing this speciality into this great forum.

Introducing marketing and business approaches in development projects is pretty new, it's very promising and there's a lot of attention to it in the sector. But at the same time this is necessary, when mutinationals enter in, to understand the interest of both parties.

No offence, as you say there's a lot of new markets to be openned but let me give you 3 examples, but I'm not here to make the Unilever's Trial.

• Extract from wikipedia, how the company started : "In 1911, the company received a concession for 750,000 hectares of forest in Belgian Congo, mostly south of Bandundu, where a system of forced labour operated"
• Scandal on fixing prices
• Greenpeace has carried an interesting campain a few years back.

Then, this is sad but in this post I was a bit frustrated to have neither Andy Narracott impression on partnering with Unilever nor Alison Parker answering what was the "toilet additive" used in the clean team ghanasan project. Toilets are built in China, and I guess toilet additive too, waste can not be treated yet out of a treatment plant, how therefore is it supporting local businesses ?

I am following closely the IFC project in Kenya (I like the fact it's made by Kenya-based plastic manufacturers) and I'm a strong believer that market approach is the futur, however we practitioners need to keep in mind the notion of sustainability when we do development. We've seen too many abuses of multinationals in the countries we're working in, many times they've unfortunatly been responsible for problems populations are facing ... so I believe this is important to discuss between on-the-ground practitioners if multinationals should be part of the solution, and then how.

To finish, thanks again for the report. This is great to have such detail analysis on all these sani-market programs, I enjoyed reading it and will take some more time for the appendixes. As I mentionned, this is great to see programs analysis from this very economic perspective, and the way you compared the program is very fluid.

Hope you're not feeling attacked, this forum is a respectful place to share ideas, conceptions and visions of the sector. Welcome again and looking forward to hear more of your own vision of the sanitation market potential building Public Private Partnerships with Multinationals.

Cordialement,

Ben

Dear Ben,

Thanks for your interest in the report.

You are opening a broad topic that is not limited to sanitation: why would large companies invest resources into social businesses for the base of the pyramid?

Hystra has been working with a range of corporates from various industries and the answer generally lies in one or several of these three categories
1. Opening new markets: base of the pyramid consumers, while highly budget constrained, prove willing and able to spend a significant share of their income on aspirational products or services, such as safe and clean sanitation
2. Developing leading-edge models that could turn financially sustainable and scalable, i.e. that would not remain grant-based NGO projects but could become profitable business entities
3. Meeting sustainability objectives that go beyond "pure profit" to reinforce values for their employees and external communication messages

In the specific context of the report, chemical and fragrances companies could bring distinctive resources that could dramatically change the economics of home mobile toilets projects. Eliminating malodors means (a) improving customers' experience hence increasing demand potential, (b) reducing the required frequency of collection hence limiting operating costs.

Hope this answers your question.

Simon Brossard

Hystra Consultant
(Co-author of Designing the Next Generation of Sanitation Business www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2099)

Thanks Campbell for sharing this great publications ( here ),

I'd like to highlight the first one DESIGNING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SANITATION BUSINESSES made up by HYSTRA. The content is very interesting for anyone interested in sani-markets. I'm always interested in partnership with multinationals and this one is with Unilever and Kymberly-Clark.

My question is short, while in the summary mention the following :"Key factors of sustainability are the sum of the servicing fee, the frequency of waste collection, and the number of toilets that can be covered by a waste collector in a given area. In that light, such a social business would greatly benefit from chemical and fragrance companies’ expertise to design and manufacture better waste containers and toilet units."

It would have been interesting to know as well "Such survey and access to years of data (all financed for years by public money) would greatly benefit to the chemical and fragrance companies in their market penetration".

Again I don't critize the content, which is good, but am always curious on what is the goal of multinationals to partner with NGOs or assimilated.

Ben