The challenge of sustainability comes up in every single one of our projects. At Kopernik, we ask ourselves several questions before we commit to implementing a project: “What will happen once we finish this project?”, “Will it continue to run once we step away?”, “Who will continue to manage the project/intervention once we have finished?”
The last thing we want to happen is to have an expensive technology we used in a project abandoned and become junk in a community we worked in, because nobody knew how to use or maintain it, or there were insufficient funds to keep up with the operating costs. Or that the technology or intervention creates conflict within a community. When we installed a water desalination facility in Nusa Penida as part of the Waste for Water project, 1we also developed a follow-up plan to ensure the sustainability of the facility for the long term.
The original ‘sustainability’ plan was to establish a community-owned business unit as means to generate income and finance the ongoing operational costs of the desalination facility. With its capacity of producing 94 gallons of clean drinking water per day, we believed by establishing the facility as a community-owned business, the revenue generated would be sufficient to finance the ongoing operational costs of the facility, and provide a benefit to the whole community by providing access to clean drinking water. We worked with the community to establish a management team for the business unit, provided basic business management training to the management team and paired them with a mentor to support the day to day running of the business. We then left Nusa Penida once the business unit was set up and started to sell the desalinated, clean drinking water.
Labels on the desalinated water gallons, ready to be sold and distributed.
A couple of months later, we returned to Nusa Penida to find that the business unit was barely making enough money to cover the desalination facility’s operational costs. The management team were only selling 40 gallons a month on average - these low sales numbers were threatening the sustainability of the desalination facility.
Need for regular maintenance
The desalination facility is a system that requires regular maintenance because the water input from the facility’s water source contains sediment. There are filters inside the machines to strain the sediment, and these filters need to be regularly replaced. The machines also need to be turned on and operated to wash away the buildup of sediment - this happens when water regularly flows through the pipes, machines and filters.
Low water gallon sales mean low revenue and insufficient funds to buy the necessary filter replacements. Low sales also result in low production and more idle time at the production facility, allowing for the buildup of sediment which solidifies inside the pipes and machines. All of this puts the infrastructure at risk of malfunction and breakage.
During our visit, we also found problems with the management of the facility. There were no regular discussions among the management team about the operation of the business, and no tracking of expenditure and income of the business unit. We also didn’t see evidence of a sense of ownership by the management team or the community of the facility. For the management team, the business unit felt like a burden that they had been left with and it was only benefitting a small number of people, not the whole community.
The need for an urgent intervention
Having found all of these problems, we needed to take action to save the desalination facility and the business unit from falling apart and ensure that it would continue to operate and provide for the community’s water needs.
Rather than coming in with an intervention already planned, we asked the management team as well as the community what support they needed to improve the operation of the desalination facility. We found and partnered with a new business mentor, and together we identified the challenges and aspirations of the management team. Based on these, we designed a business training program for the business unit.
The business training module focused on creating open communication among the management team, creating a marketing strategy to promote the quality and safety of the water, and improving the overall business plan to ensure that the business can be profitable, provide salaries for the management team, and contribute to the community. The modules were delivered through active group discussions to ensure active participation - rather than one-way content delivery, and also included promotional support, management skill development, and bookkeeping skills.
Promoting the product by providing free samples to local shops around Nusa Penida.
Creating a sense of ownership within the community
As we witnessed earlier prior to the above intervention, the surrounding community was becoming skeptical of the business unit because they were feeling that the desalination facility was only benefitting a few people in the community. The management team was aware of this situation and realized that they needed to ensure the community was benefiting directly because the business was built for the community.
The management team decided that they would set aside part of the revenue from the water sales for the community through communal savings that can be used to fund community-based activities such as local ceremonies or celebrations. The community responded well to this gesture and began to develop a sense of ownership towards the business unit.
A business made for the community: part of the revenue from the desalination facility is contributed to community-based activities such as traditional ceremonies.
Lessons learned from managing sustainability
This article is written three months after the business training program ended. Since then the water sales of the business unit continue to grow and have increased by more than 50% compared to prior to the intervention. The water is now sold in three additional stores around the island and the management team is actively promoting the water to people outside of their community.
We learned a lot through this project and were reminded that additional measures and effort is needed to ensure the sustainability of our interventions. We learned that establishing a community-based business unit can be a means to ensure the sustainability of our projects if we can effectively empower the business units with the right tools. And to figure out which are the right tools, we need to listen to the actual challenges and needs, and design a program that responds to them.
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Learn more about the community-led business training through this link.
To see a summary of results and learnings from the lean experiments conducted by Kopernik since 2016, visit our Solutions Catalog.
1The Waste for Water project aimed to address clean water scarcity in Nusa Penida, Bali by installing a water desalination facility that can turn underground brackish water into drinkable water.
