SUSTAINABLE SANITATION A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT

The SEI Initiative on Sustainable Sanitation (SISS) promotes a 'whole-system perspective' to sanitation, moving beyond waste disposal toward resource recovery. The initiative focuses on low- and middle-income countries, integrating sanitation with broader Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to improve health, food security, and energy production. Key tools developed include REVAMP for urban resource mapping and the 'Clean and Green' model for rural communities. SISS emphasizes that sustainability depends on the synergy between technical hardware and enabling institutional, financial, and social factors.

• Sustainable sanitation is defined as systems that protect human health, minimize environmental degradation and resource depletion, and remain technically, institutionally, socially, and economically viable over the long term.
• The sustainability of a sanitation system is not determined by the specific technology used, but by the synergistic functioning of a whole system tailored to its specific context, including regulations, financing, and user acceptance.
• Productive sanitation focuses on turning waste into valuable resources by recovering nutrients, organic matter, water, and energy from wastewater and human excreta for use in energy production (such as biogas) and agriculture.
• A lack of systems thinking in previous government and donor programs has led to the failure of sanitation systems due to unclear institutional responsibilities, lack of maintenance provisions, or insufficient user engagement.
• SISS has developed the REVAMP tool to assist urban planners and investors in estimating the financial value and volume of reuse products that can be generated from a city's organic waste streams.
• The 'Clean and Green' model is a scalable development framework for rural communities that combines sustainable sanitation and hygiene with the management of organic waste streams, including crop residues and livestock manure.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2017). SUSTAINABLE SANITATION A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-SISS-Brochure-PhaseII.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. SUSTAINABLE SANITATION A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT. 2017. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-SISS-Brochure-PhaseII.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=SUSTAINABLE SANITATION A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT |date=2017 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-SISS-Brochure-PhaseII.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2017sustainable, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{SUSTAINABLE SANITATION A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2017}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-SISS-Brochure-PhaseII.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }