Designers from ten high-profile firms have joined forces to assist enhance entry to wash water and sanitation throughout the globe as a part of the Design for Good consortium. CEO Fazilat Damani shares 5 of probably the most promising.
Design for Good (DfG) was initially launched in 2022 as a non-profit alliance of ten companies from totally different industries, together with tech firms Microsoft and Philips and London’s Royal College of Art.
The alliance additionally contains meals companies Nestlé and PepsiCo, which have beforehand been named among the five most plastic-polluting companies in the world.
Working in two-year cycles, designers from every of those firms are donating their time and expertise professional bono, collaborating in groups to sort out one of many 17 Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs) set out by the United Nations.
“The sustainability challenges recognized by the United Nations are too massive to be addressed by any single establishment,” DfG co-founder Ben Sheppard informed Dezeen.
“We’re delighted to see lots of the world’s main firms, together with direct opponents, uniting as a part of the DfG alliance with a view to have an elevated likelihood of creating lasting, sustainable change collectively.”
Want for clear water underlies all different SDGs
DfG’s first cohort has already accomplished the analysis and prototyping stage for 26 totally different options to deal with Sustainable Growth Objective quantity six: entry to wash water and sanitation.
Now, within the second half of the two-year cycle, the groups are centered on implementing these concepts in collaboration with numerous improvement organisations.
In keeping with DfG’s chief expertise officer Fazilat Damani, the ten founding members voted for water and sanitation as the primary SDG to sort out since it is usually some of the basic.
“SDG six form of permeates all the opposite 16 UN SDGs,” she defined. “Take high quality training – sanitation and water is essential as a result of for those who drink unclean water, you get sick and you may’t go to highschool.”
“So it goes by all of them,” she added. “And there is numerous breadth when it comes to the kind of improvements that may come by.”
DfG will select a brand new SDG to sort out each two years, with training set to be the theme of the following cycle beginning in September 2024.
“It is completely superb to see how our designers can shift their pondering from designing in a industrial setting to designing for susceptible communities,” Damani mentioned.
“They’re actually obsessed with human-centred design, wanting to know how these communities stay and the way it’s totally different from what they know in order that they will innovate one thing that may genuinely clear up an issue.”
Under, Damani shares 5 of probably the most thrilling tasks which have come out of the primary cohort to this point, together with a DIY bathroom and a gamified handwashing equipment for youngsters.
Germ Buster
This transportable handwashing equipment features a germ-monster stamp that – very similar to viruses and micro organism – takes a minimum of 20 seconds to clean off in a bid to show youngsters concerning the significance of correct hand hygiene.
The set additionally features a monster-themed mesh bag (prime picture) full of dry cleaning soap sheets, plus a bottle holder that screws onto a PET water bottle and will be hung up so that children can wash their palms regardless of the place they’re.
The mission by designers from know-how firm Logitech and Grohe‘s father or mother firm Lixil is a response to analysis displaying that a million deaths could be prevented globally every year if folks routinely washed their palms.
“What’s neat about that is that it is designed for youngsters and it performs into this playfulness,” Damani mentioned.
“They love stickers and issues like that. And by having a stamp, they will visually see okay my palms are clear and simply have a bit extra enjoyable with studying learn how to be hygienic.”
The crew is now hoping to work with a client packaged items firm to show the Germ Buster idea into actuality.
Workforce 118
Led by designers from Microsoft, Lixil and administration consultancy McKinsey & Company, this collaboration with the Liberian Youth Parliament for Water sought to enhance entry to interval merchandise within the West African nation of Liberia.
As a substitute of presenting a one-size-fits-all answer, the crew developed a form of match-making app, which recommends an applicable product based mostly on the monetary sources and sanitation services accessible to folks within the native space.
From menstrual cups to reusable pads, the app additionally shares particulars about how these period merchandise ought to be used and cleaned, and the way they are often regionally sourced or DIYed.
“That is all about self-empowerment and feminine liberation,” Damani mentioned. “To ask for a menstrual product is a bit embarrassing. There’s nonetheless a stigma round it. So that is about permitting a feminine to be self-sufficient.”
“We take with no consideration that now now we have all the pieces at our disposal,” she added. “We now have underwear, now we have menstrual cups, now we have tampons. However in different susceptible communities, they do not even know half of these items exists.”
With the app accomplished, the crew is at the moment understanding a distribution mannequin by way of social media.
WaterStarters
Common upkeep is among the key hurdles standing in the way in which of a dependable water provide in rural Kenya, with analysis suggesting that up to 40 per cent of hand pumps in sub-Saharan Africa are damaged at anyone time.
Social enterprise WaterStarters goals to sort out this difficulty through the use of a franchise mannequin to encourage locals to make a enterprise out of creating and managing a groundwater pump for his or her group.
To assist them by the upkeep course of, a crew of designers from Philips and McKinsey & Firm created an app that prompts customers to conduct check-ups and gives steering on learn how to repair any points by tutorials in addition to voice and video calls.
“We’re not solely specializing in upkeep nevertheless it gives an income-generating alternative for an entrepreneur within the susceptible group,” Damani mentioned.
“To allow them to take possession of this. They will generate cash and so they’re absolutely outfitted with learn how to do the upkeep so they are not left on their very own. They’ve a assist system in place.”
Presently, the platform is being trialled in Kenya’s Kajiado County in order that suggestions will be gathered to construct an app store-ready model. As soon as applied, the crew believes the initiative might assist to convey clear water to 63,000 folks inside two years.
Sabal
Sabal is a make-your-own-toilet equipment, designed to supply women and girls residing in city slums throughout India a safer and extra sanitary various to shared group restrooms.
Confronted with paying charges for unhygienic public bathrooms and the added threat of violence at evening, almost 1 / 4 of girls in these communities incessantly maintain their pee or chorus from ingesting liquids to keep away from rest room use, based on analysis carried out as a part of DfG.
Created by a crew of designers from the Royal School of Artwork (RCA), Philips, Lixil and McKinsey & Firm, the Sabal equipment permits ladies to take again their company by making a DIY toilet for themselves utilizing readily accessible supplies.
The at-home model consists of a bucket topped with a plastic bathroom seat and lined with a compostable bin bag, which will be tied up and composted after the urine is solidified utilizing an absorbent powder.
In the meantime, the transportable model is housed in a service manufactured from an previous sari and accommodates a Shewee-style transportable urinal, a torch, rape whistle and reusable moist wipes.
“It is like a rest room in a handbag,” Damani mentioned. “You too can construct these kits so as to then promote them and use it as an income-generating alternative.”
“A prototype has been made for this one,” she added. “And what we’re doing proper now’s working with improvement organisations to see who desires to take it ahead and actually hone in on a number of the points of tradition to verify we do not offend anybody.”
Individuals’s Public Bathroom Builder
The World Toilet Organisation partnered with designers from the RCA, PepsiCo, Nestle and McKinsey to create the “world’s first” centralised tips for designing public bathrooms in several areas throughout the globe.
The mission goals to compile usually disparate, incomplete and hard-to-find info into one central on-line compendium for the primary time, to make sure that all communities can have entry to secure and hygienic restrooms which might be applicable to the native tradition, local weather, constructing codes and affluence degree.
“In the event you’re an architect or for those who’re a group member and it’s worthwhile to construct a rest room in a rustic that is predominantly Muslim, for instance, there are specific requirements that should be held up round that,” Damani defined.
“So it could be nice for those who might simply put in your context and it spits out all the pieces that you just want.”
The crew has designed a prototype consumer interface for the platform and is now trying to work with a big language mannequin AI to identify and fill any gaps within the information.
“It is nonetheless at a form of concept section,” Damani added. “We’re trying to accomplice with certainly one of our alliance members or a improvement organisation that may truly make investments the cash on this specific experience to assist construct out the again finish.”
All photos courtesy of Design for Good.