Climate: Ecosystems + Housing
Waste-to-Value Sustainable Sanitation Solution
What is the name of your solution?
Waste-to-Value Sustainable Sanitation Solution
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
Our patented eco-social innovation toilet system ECOLOO employs bacterial culture to treat the waste & generates nutritious organic fertilizer.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
The ECOLOO development journey started from a TV documentary on TV showing the actual situation of the BoPs who were suffering from poor sanitation and how kids and women practiced open defecation whilst the lowest caste Indian women collected poop from door to door without gloves or shoes on just to earn a few rupees. This loo story was the motivation behind the creation and R&D of ECOLOO that we are very passionate about and "All In" to this business.
Through the adaptation of ECOLOO on bigger scale, we can achieve great transformational change and impact on the UN SDGs, directly and indirectly:
A) Direct impact on SDGs:
- SDG#3: Good health & Well Being
- SDG#6: Clean Water & Sanitation. ECOLOO provides sustainable sanitation solutions that are totally enclosed system (preventing pollution and contamination), waterless (preventing sewage generation and environmental contamination).
- SDG#11: Sustainable Cities & Communities - by adopting our sustainable solutions in the cities and communities for indoor and outdoor purposes and turn any complex and building into eco-friendly and sewage-free complex and building.
B) Indirect impact on SDGs:
- SDG#1: No poverty - the poor can benefit from free organic fertilizer.
- SDG#8: Decent Work & Economic Growth - our inclusive social business model promotes sustainable economic growth and provides secure and fairly paid work to people.
- SDG#9: Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure - our eco social innovations help improve water and sanitation, reduce water and energy consumption, greener infrastructure resulting in less carbon emission & environmental pollution.
- SDG#14: Life Below Water - by treating our waste on site instead of dumping the untreated sewage andtoxics into oceans and rivers, we prevent the lives below water from being contaminated.
- SDG#15: Life On Land - by having sustainable toilets and fertilizer, more lives on land can be saved from water borne diseases, contaminated fish and chemical fertilizer (which can be hazardous to the soil,
water and lives on land).
What is your solution?
ECOLOO provides a sustainable toilet system, which is completely enclosed and waterless. These systems save huge amounts of freshwater from being flushed into the drain, preventing sewage generation, and disabling environmental pollution and contamination.
ECOLOO is a perfect solution for those without access to sanitation and affordable housing or excisting houses that lack any sanitation facility. It is totally enclosed, decentralized, waterless, sewage free, energy free and maintenance free. It does not require water for flushing, any digging, piping, IST or access to STP. Minimal water is needed for washing or personal hygiene.
With ECOLOO, there will be no sewage created and therefore, no septic tank or access to STP is required and when there is no contamination in groundwater, there will be no water borne diseases.
With ECOLOO, women and children’s dignity is protected and students can focus on their studies in class. There will be less and less open defecation among the men particularly if proper toilets that are easy to be used are provided.
ECOLOO does not require removal of solid waste like the typical composting toilets. It generates liquid fertilizer that is odorless, pathogen free, rich in nutrients, safe for the environment and ensures food security. ECOLOO sustainable toilet is a money making machine that can provide passive income for the BoPs through the buy and sell of the organic fertilizer for organic farming.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Hygienic toilets like ECOLOO lead to healthier people and better life especially for women and children against the following issues:
- Security issue: women and children get attacked by poisonous snakes and other dangerous insects and animals while defecating in the open.
- Rape risk issue: women are facing a high risk of rape by men who are keen to keep eyes on them defecating in the open losing their dignities, pride and risking their lives.
- Health issue: a woman holding her bladder on daily basis for many hours develops a permanent peeleakage problem & bad smell at younger age.
- Education issue: menstruation and poor sanitation affect girl school attendance
- Social issue: women in India are not willing to get married if husband is not providing a toilet. “No Toilet, No Bride” movement
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Our business model is developed to integrate underserved populations into our supply chain by creating business and job opportunities to the local community from production to distribution, installation, training, maintenance, collection and reuse of fertilizer from the toilet, which may lead to organic farming. And it is easily replicable in different countries or communities through our trainings program, train-the-trainers, awareness programs and roadshows,..etc.
ECOLOO has a global presence in over 25 countries with key partners including UN bodies such as UNDP, UNSOS and UNHCR. The organization has sold more than 3K toilets and impacted over 2 million people, resulting in 600K m3 of water-saving.
ECOLOO aims to promote sustainable development by providing sanitation solutions that not only offer appropriate waste management options but also address poverty and incidence of disease and preserve water, energy, human dignity and the environment.
For example, we solved the open defecation at 2 girl schools in Sierra Leone, in collaboration with Hope2Overcome NGO, and provided them with safe places to exercise sanitary hygiene with dignity resulting in better education and performance and 35% attendance increment of the girls as they are no longer worried of their menstruation problems at schools with hygienic toilets provided by ECOLOO.
- Project Website: https://www.help2overcome.org/...
- Annual Report 2018: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd...
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Enable mass production of inexpensive and low-carbon housing, including changes to design, materials, and construction methods.
Where our solution team is headquartered or located:
Helsingborg, SwedenOur solution's stage of development:
ScaleHow many people does your solution currently serve?
1875700
Why are you applying to Solve?
We want to overcome the following barriers:
- Product / Technology: Users' acceptance and the ability to adopt new technologies or solutions. We need help to create awareness to break the taboo and change the mindset before we change the loo. The initial challenges we have faced in this respect are corruption and lack of awareness and education related to WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) and environment issues among citizens and decision-makers. We have a zero-corruption-tolerance policy.
- Market: Tenders published by donors, government or UN for example where specifications are outdated can only match and apply on pit latrine or plastic traditional unsustainable portable toilets, the price level is too low and can't be matched, sustainability and quality aren't considered at all. They go for the cheapest solution!
- Sustainable CSR projects: we are looking for corporations that can join us in a new approach on our on-wheel project to sponsor the franchisees (underserved people especially women) to get onboard and earn money sustainably. In return, corporations will get their adverts on the vehicle and get visibility.
Our vision is to be a world leading sustainable solution provider and to be in every home and street, event and island.. globally.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Imad Agi, Founder and CEO
What makes your solution innovative?
ECOLOO's award winning and patented biological sustainable Sanitation Solutions are based on the principle of Simplicity, Scalability, Environmental Responsibility and Economic Viability. It employs special
formulated bacterial culture to treat and vanish human waste and transform the urine into natural liquid fertilizer that is odor free, pathogen free and full of nutrients, perfect for organic farming.
ECOLOO is environmentally friendly, odour free, water free, sewage free, energy free and hassle free as it is very easy to be installed and maintained. Its by-product is also odour free, pathogen free and full of
nutrients, perfect for organic farming.
ECOLOO does not require water for flushing but water can still be used for hygiene or cleaning purpose. By using ECOLOO, one can save gallons of clean water from being flushed into septic tank or sewage treatment plant and millions to billions of Dollars from being spent on sewage treatment and sewage transportation.
What are your impact goals for the next year and the next five years, and how will you achieve them?
Our vision is to be a world leading sustainable solution provider and achieve related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Our impact goals in the next year is to double our reach and impact 4-5 million people, saving 1.2 million m3 of water. And hope to reach 100 million people, saving over 100 million m3 of water throughout the 5 years of operation.
In the next 5 years we plan to gain bigger market shares in India, China, SEA, Africa and South/Latin America. To develop our products further to meet the local needs and cultures and to complete the R&D of the new products we have in the pipeline to accelerate our scale up and get wider customer base.
How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?
Although we have over 30 partners and 115 customers in over 25 countries we have exported our products to and used by over 2 million people annually at different public and tourist areas around the World, the sales volume is still low considering the impact we wish to achieve. Therefore we need all kinds of support and mentorship we can get to move on and get to the next level and make the big difference we vision.
Scaling up our eco social innovation in developing countries is crucial to achieve some of the critical SDGs because our sustainable solutions help solve the world's pressing issues related to water, sanitation, hygiene & environment, and will have a positive domino effect on poverty, health, women, organic farming, food security, food quality, society, wellbeing & stability in many ways.
Meeting the SDG#6 is achievable with ECOLOO but it requires coordination at all levels of Government and the formation of partnerships between private companies and bilateral donors, development agencies, financial institutions, NGOs, media, civil society and local communities.
The huge impact of the whole supply chain is our way to measure our success, for example, the number of units we install, number of people using our toilets, the amount of water and energy we save, health that we keep improving, decrement of infant, child, and maternal mortality, number of farmers using our organic fertilizer, number of BoPs (Bottom of the Pyramid) who are able to come out of the poverty cycle due to healthier and more productive life, number of business and job opportunities created through our social business model, improvement of societies or communities or the whole country in general and the savings on public expenses (such as waste treatment, sewage treatment plants (CAPEX) and maintenance cost (OPEX), environmental impact and decrement of pollution and carbon footprint.
Our prefered methodology is the Smart Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely one collecting the data through the following:
- Surveys
- Questionnaires
- Interviews
- Checklists
- Feedback forms
What is your theory of change?
ECOLOO technology together with its awareness campaigns will achieve its long-term desired goal to make the technology available and affordable to all our beneficiaries, especially the BoP that lack access to adequate sanitation. They have the right to own one of our sustainable toilets at home. That will help us eliminate open defecation once and for all and achieve positive impacts by having greener places with hygienic, disciplined, focused and ecological intelligent people.
Our short-term goal is to implement our solutions in as many locations and countries as possible to showcase the technology and get the users' confidence. An intermediate goal is to continue our awareness activities in order to change the mindset of the public, politicians and decision-makers to use sustainable sanitation solutions whether it is ECOLOO or other solutions.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
Technology Description:
ECOLOO base is made of a 2-tier chamber: the upper chamber is where human waste including urine (not urine diversion system) is collected and treated by specially formulated bacterial culture whilst the lower chamber is where the organic fertilizer in liquid form is rendered to by gravity using no water to flush. While the bacterial culture dissolves and vanishes the solid waste within just 3-4 days, the nitrification process that is built in the system converts the liquid waste into by-product of value added fertilizer that is odour free, pathogen free and yet full of nutrients within 30 minutes.
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new technology
How do you know that this technology works?
ECOLOO sustainable toilets were exported and installed in many countries around the world since 2008. Some of those projects are:
- ECOLOO system has been installed 2008 at Faringen in Stromstad (Swedish Municipality) for public use, and thousands of people used the facility for over a decade and still use it until today. The purpose of the project was to provide tourists with odor-free and water-free toilets to eliminate open defecation due to lack of such facilities in the area and to protect the pure water of the lake from being contaminated by human feces.
Testimonial: https://ecoloogroup.com/pdf/St...
- The installation of 20 ECOLOO toilets at 2 girl schools in Sierra Leone, in collaboration with Hope2Overcome NGO, helped improve the girls’ attendance and performance by 35% and provided them with safe places to exercise sanitary hygiene with dignity.
- Project Website: https://www.help2overcome.org/...
- Annual Report 2018: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd...
- Our Biodiversity project in Jordan together with UNDP for the UNESCO World Heritage areas – the lost city in Petra, National Reserved Park in Dibbin and deserted areas in Wadi Rum - rescued the sites from losing their “Heritage Title” after receiving yellow card from UNESCO for being unsustainable where thousands of tourists practiced open defecation polluting the protected historical area, and not only resulted in increasing the number of tourists to 1 million per year but also had a great socio-economic benefit, improving daily sales for the micro businesses in the area operated by women selling all kinds of commodities and souvenir items to the tourists in order to support their families and survive and also the passive income generated to the site from the liquid fertilizer collected.
Project in the news: https://www.jordantimes.com/ne...
- The installation of ECOLOO toilets at Kuala Lumpur SEA (South East Asia) GAMES, in collaboration with Malaysian Ministry of Youth & Sports, helped the Government save around 150,000 liters of water throughout the 10 days event.
- The installation of 2 ECOLOOs in a 2-storey floating lab belong to the University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) who conducted research on the water of the Kenyir Lake, Malaysia helped prevent the lake from being polluted.
- The installation of 160 ECOLOOs at the famous Boom Festival in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal in 2010 saved estimated 4.6 million liters of water, served 24,000 visitors throughout the 10 days event.
All that improved our brand recognition and demonstrated a great leadership adapting inclusive social business to achieve some critical SDGs, helped to realize energy savings, improved organizational practices, improved cost efficiency, reduced costs through increased resource and energy efficiency.
Our contributions to the society, health and environment have been recognized as iconic and strategic by the United Nations, CNN, UNWTO, Swedish Energy Agency, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), International Federation of Inventors’ Associations (IFIA), WSSCC, OFEED, Solar Impulse Foundation, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Energy Globe, MaGIC, China Tourist Association & Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GCIP, Mercy Mission, World CSR Congress Council in India, World Invention and Innovation Forum in China among others.
We are excited to share with you the results of ECOLOO Assessment report, Avoided Emissions Framework, by Mission Innovation’s Net-Zero Compatible Innovations Initiative (NCI): https://ecoloogroup.com/pdf/NC...
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
How many people work on your solution team?
Full time: 10, part time: 12, contractors: 5
How long have you been working on your solution?
15 years
What is your approach to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusivity into your work?
ECOLOO plans to invest in skills development for its employees (especially women and marginalized groups), suppliers, distributors or customers to optimize productivity and performance as we create awareness.
ECOLOO plans to generate economic opportunities within supply and distribution channels through our enterprise development activities for local small and micro-enterprises.
Other than including the BoP into our value chain, our social business also aims to provide/sell our products or services to low-income consumers.
What is your business model?
ECOLOO adapts an inclusive business model that is a commercially viable solution to expand the access to goods, services and livelihood opportunities for low-income people and to tap into the potential of the base of the economic pyramid by including them into our value chain as our employees, raw material suppliers, distributors, retailers or customers. We follow the guidelines advised by the founder of the social business concept, Professor Muhammad Yunus. No dividend to shareholders and all profit will be invested back in the entities for the best interest of the public and society.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Organizations (B2B)What is your plan for becoming financially sustainable?
We sell our products and services with profit and become financially sustainable. We engage NGOs in our outreach, awareness programs, trainings and installations.
Solution Team
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Mr Imad Agi CEO, ECOLOO Group
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Our Organization
ECOLOO Group