Many for-profit businesses today are seeking methods to use their resources to create social good, which relates to the topics of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. One of the ways for them to achieve that is to rethink and redesign their business model.

Ideo.org is a non-profit branch of the design firm Ideo, which helps both for-profit businesses and non-profit organizations to design and create solutions to apply to poverty-related challenges.

One of their past projects is a toilet rental service in Kumasi, Ghana, partnering with Unilever and Water & Sanitation for the Urban poor. In Kumasi, many residences don’t have toilets in their own home, and they have to rely on the public paid toilets. These toilets are the best option for these residences, but sometimes it can be really inconvenient. Sometimes people would just rather do their business in a bucket and dump their “wastes” out to the gutter. This created some unsanitary areas in the cities, and could lead to diseases. What Ideo.org designed for the sanitation company is a small rental toilet called Uniloo, which could be rented by customers for a monthly fee, and the wastes would be picked up three times a week to be delivered to a treatment facility. As of January 2013, there are 490 toilets in use, by the end of 2013, they aim to service 1,000 households, and 10,000 households in 2014.

This project is a great example of how innovation & entrepreneurship and sustainability can come together. This method is a great way to deliver a firm’s value proposition, and at the same time create a favorable brand perception.