IDEO.org's Carla Lopez reports on the kickoff of our newest Innovation Fund Project with Sanergy, a social enterprise with the a mission to give residents of informal settlements in Nairobi a clean and pleasant alternative to their current sanitation options (which currently include pit latrines, pooping in a bag, and ‘hanging’ toilets that open directly onto a river).

Yesterday we kicked off our newest Innovation Fund deep dive project with the Sanergy team, a committed and talented group selling the Fresh Life toilet as part of a franchise model. Fresh Life toilets are sold at cost, entrepreneurs charge people a nominal fee to use the toilet, and Sanergy then collects the waste from the toilets to process into biogas and fertilizer, which allows Sanergy to recover its costs.

Our IDEO.org design brief – help Sanergy franchise owners increase their sales.

In just eighteen months since the Sanergy core team hit the ground, they have established 125 operating franchised sanitation facilities and a team of 75 fulltime staff. After meeting the team yesterday and hearing about the activities of their sales, finance, marketing, branding, operations, engineering, waste processing, HR, and design teams, I was floored by how much they have managed to get done in so little time. Sanergy’s goal is 1,000 Fresh Life toilets by 2015.

Our IDEO.org team (Matteo, Danny, and I) set off to Mukuru, an informal settlement near Jomo Kenyatta International Airport here in Nairobi, to meet some of Sanergy’s franchisees. Mukuru is a lively place. Barbershops, food stalls, tailors, and dry goods merchants all butt up against homes made of corrugated metal. The atmosphere is friendly and space is tight. Gumboots are advisable, especially after last night’s heavy rains. Perched along Mukuru’s dirty canals and alongside piles of rubbish, the bright blue Fresh Life toilets stand out like a welcoming beacon.

The first Fresh Life toilet we visited struck me by its lack of any odor, its brightness, and its cleanliness. This is the result of Sanergy’s clever design and the value placed on the toilet by the franchise owners. The franchisee’s business-in-a-box includes a hand washing station and franchisees are required to provide water, soap, and toilet paper to their customers – amenities not typically provided by other commercial toilets. The first customer we met told us “it’s so clean, you can eat in there.”

The eight franchise owners we spoke to today were pleased by more than the success of their Fresh Life businesses. They described how their communities have changed with the introduction of Fresh Life toilets. Fewer bags of feces (aka, flying toilets) litter the narrow pathways between the low buildings. The smell of the area has improved. And thanks to encouragement from Fresh Life operations, customers are washing their hands with soap and healthier for doing so.

Most of the franchise owners we spoke to today in Mukuru were satisfied with the number of customers visiting their Fresh Life toilets. During our next field visit we’ll do some in-depth interviews with franchise owners with fewer customers so that we can better understand how we might help them grow their customer base. Stay tuned for updates from Nairobi!