There are crises the world rallies around—and then there are those it quietly lives with.
Sanitation sits firmly in the latter category. It rarely makes headlines, seldom anchors policy debates, and is almost never framed as a driver of economic growth. Yet for billions of people, it shapes daily life in ways both deeply personal and profoundly structural.
This is the paradox that SATO, a social business under LIXIL, has spent over a decade confronting—not as a charity case, but as a market opportunity hiding in plain sight.
Today, with over 100 million people reached across Africa and Asia, SATO’s journey is more than a story of scale. It’s a case study in reframing one of the world’s most overlooked development challenges.
The problem we don’t see
Globally, 3.4 billion people still lack access to safe sanitation. Another 1.7 billion live without basic hygiene facilities. The numbers are staggering, but they don’t capture the lived reality.
“Access to sanitation and hygiene is still too often viewed as a social issue,” says Erin McCusker, LIXIL’s Chief Impact Officer overseeing SATO. “Rather than being recognized for what it is: the foundation of healthy, productive societies and thriving economies.”
The challenge lies partly in perception. For decades, sanitation has been framed as a behavioral problem or a charitable cause—something to be donated, not invested in.
SATO’s approach challenges that thinking at its core. Instead of treating people as passive recipients of aid, it sees them as consumers—individuals capable of making informed decisions when given the right products, pricing, and access.
Scaling what works
Reaching 100 million people didn’t happen through a single breakthrough. It came from aligning product innovation with deep local insight and distribution networks capable of delivering at scale.
“We listen to the specific needs of local communities and create solutions that address those needs,” McCusker explains. From the SATO Pan—a simple toilet fixture that fits over pit latrines—to the SATO Tap, the emphasis is on practicality. Solutions designed for real environments, not ideal ones.
But innovation alone doesn’t deliver impact.
SATO’s real strength lies in building ecosystems: networks of manufacturers, retailers, masons, and partners who ensure products reach communities and continue working long after installation.
“The key lesson for us has been that success can only be achieved when all elements sing harmoniously,” McCusker says. “You could have an amazing product, but no channel to get it to communities. Or a robust supply chain but a product that doesn’t meet local needs. Every element must be considered as part of one holistic strategy.”
It’s this systems-level thinking that distinguishes SATO’s model from traditional interventions.
From funding gaps to functioning markets
As momentum around Sustainable Development Goal 6 slows—new projections suggest universal sanitation access won’t be achieved until 2070 or 2090—the cracks in traditional funding models are becoming harder to ignore.
“The funding gap for sanitation is significant, which is threatening long-term progress,” McCusker notes. International aid, once critical for establishing projects and feasibility studies, is declining as donor countries cut budgets.
SATO’s response is to lean harder into market-based solutions—creating systems where demand, not donations, drives access.
“This approach moves the focus away from funding and donations to creating such a compelling case that communities want to invest in sanitation and hygiene,” McCusker says.
It’s a shift that places the private sector at the center of long-term impact—not as a replacement for aid, but as a force multiplier. By integrating consumer insights, building local supply chains, and ensuring commercial viability, companies can transform sanitation from a recurring charitable expense into a driver of local economic empowerment.
The ripple effects of a toilet
Impact in this space is rarely immediate, but it is deeply transformative.
At the most basic level, improved sanitation reduces disease transmission. But the effects extend far beyond health metrics.
“The most profound changes are in dignity and safety,” McCusker says. Women who previously had to wait for darkness to relieve themselves—exposing them to harassment or animal attacks—can now use toilets safely at home. Girls can attend school during menstruation without interruption, preventing the loss of educational opportunities.
In Kenya’s Kitui County, SATO partnered with the local government and UNICEF to reach 150,000 people with improved sanitation. The county was declared open defecation-free in 2018. Since then, child stunting rates have dropped from 47% to around 25%—gains that will shape the community for generations.
Meanwhile, SATO’s “Make, Sell, Use” model is quietly reshaping local economies. Rather than building LIXIL-branded factories, the company partners with existing local manufacturers and distributors. This creates skilled jobs—in manufacturing, retail, and installation—while keeping costs accessible.
In Nigeria, SATO partnered with Indorama, a global manufacturing conglomerate that supplies fertilizer to over 32 million farmers. By leveraging Indorama’s existing supply chain, 25,000 SATO Pans were installed in rural communities, creating both health and economic impact.
Female entrepreneurs play a particularly important role in this ecosystem, advancing gender equality while building inclusive economic growth.
What corporations stand to gain
McCusker is direct about why multinational corporations should care about sanitation in rural communities: it’s increasingly essential to their operations.
“Many businesses around the world source from rural communities, whether that’s tea growers in Assam or coffee growers in Kenya,” she explains. “More and more, businesses understand the responsibility to ensure that the communities in their value chain have access to basic provisions, including sanitation and hygiene.”
The business case is straightforward. Poor sanitation facilitates disease spread, reducing workforce productivity. For companies dependent on rural supply chains, investing in sanitation isn’t philanthropy—it’s risk management.
“Positive sanitation and hygiene minimize the spread of communicable diseases and illness, creating more productive colleagues,” McCusker says.
It’s a logic that applies beyond direct suppliers. As stakeholder expectations shift and ESG metrics gain prominence, the ability to demonstrate meaningful social impact is becoming less optional.
The road to 200 million
With 103 million lives reached, LIXIL has announced a new target: an additional 100 million people by 2030.
But scale, for McCusker, isn’t just about numbers.
“Impact at scale requires the mobilization of multi-sector partners,” she says. “From governments and NGOs to corporates that can combine to reach last-mile communities. We know we can’t tackle this challenge alone.”
The next phase will depend on deeper collaboration—between public and private sectors, between global companies and local entrepreneurs, between innovation and implementation.
For corporate leaders considering how to integrate social purpose into business strategy, McCusker’s advice is practical: identify where your company’s strengths overlap with pressing global needs, then commit real resources and focus to that intersection.
“A decade ago, SATO was born in response to the growing sanitation and hygiene crisis,” she reflects. “That level of progress would have been a far-fetched thought back then, but it shows the power of collaboration, the benefits of market-based models, and creating solutions that are tailor-made for local communities.”
A different way of thinking
SATO’s story ultimately challenges a long-held assumption: that some problems are too complex, too entrenched, or too underfunded to solve sustainably.
But what if the issue isn’t the problem itself—only how we’ve chosen to approach it?
Sanitation, once viewed as an invisible crisis, is slowly being reframed. Not as charity, but as infrastructure. Not as cost, but as investment. Not as a social issue, but as an economic imperative.
And in that shift lies something powerful: the possibility that even the most overlooked challenges can become engines of progress—when we choose to see them differently.
“Every corporation can make a difference,” McCusker says. “The option to create better lives is in everyone’s hands.”
