The energy crisis in the world had attracted the attention of several organizations which had come up with different solutions to it. It was found that the problem was worse in African countries where 80% of the houses used either wood or charcoal as cooking fuel. The death toll in these countries was increasing every year due to the diseases caused by people inhaling the smoke emanating from open-fire cooking. Moreover, the loss caused to individuals, economies, and the environment in developing and underdeveloped countries was far more than these statistics revealed. Apart from this, the lack of physical space, infrastructure, and adequate resources combined with high density population in the poorer sections of many countries had led to a sanitation crisis.

Kenya was one such country which suffered from the dual problem of energy and sanitation crises. Each home in Kenya used an average of around 3 tonnes of wood per year, which worked out to 4.1 million tonnes for the whole country. It had also become a hub of slums with a population of more than 8 million living in the urban slums. The lack of affordable toilets forced many Kenyans to rely on unsanitary options such as having to defecate in plastic bags (called flying toilets). The result of inadequate sanitation facilities and using wood as primary cooking fuel led to environmental degradation and an increasing number of deaths.

To provide a sustainable solution to this dual problem, two Georgia Tech grads, Andrew Foote and Emily Woods, established a unique business, Sanivation. In 2013, after the success of a pilot project run in some of the villages of Kenya to provide basic sanitation facilities by offering affordable toilets and converting the human waste into usable charcoal briquettes, Sanivation set up its business in a lakeside town called Naivasha in the country. The company applied its innovative vertically integrated waste management system which included building and installing toilets, waste collection, waste treatment, selling fuel, and revenue generation. The company earned revenue by charging a monthly subscription fee for installing toilets and by selling human waste converted into charcoal briquettes.

These toilets improved hygiene in the villages of Kenya while the charcoal briquettes produced less smoke and were affordable. The overall impact of Sanivation on people’s life was positive. However, for the Sanivation team and its founders, a few challenges remained. In order to expand to other countries and address the problem in a larger area, the model needed to be scaled up and people had to be convinced to inculcate the habit of using the toilets and the efficient briquettes made of human waste.

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Issues

The case is structured to achieve the following teaching objectives:

	Apply sustainability models — the triple bottom line in any business setup, and covering three spheres of sustainability — economic, social, and environmental in a real life situation.
	Analyze the challenges faced by the social entrepreneurs.
	Suggest ways to address the cultural barrier for using human excreta as fuel in the household.
	Prepare a roadmap to scale up the enterprise.
	Debate whether the Sanivation model is sustainable given the fact that Kenya was planning to expand covered sewage facilities in villages.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

SANITATION CRISIS

ENERGY CHALLENGE

SANIVATION – THE INCEPTION

SANIVATION BUSINESS MODEL: A SINGLE SOLUTION FOR TWIN PROBLEMS

THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF SANIVATION

Keywords

Sanivation,Kenya,Sanitation,Energy,Blue Boxes,Flying Toilets,Naivasha,Emily Woods,Andrew Foote,Briquettes,Kenyan Slums

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