‘Business as unusual’ for hygiene and sanitation

Poor handwashing behaviours and lack of access to clean, safe toilets have a profound impact on the lives and potential of children in developing countries. For Global Handwashing Day and World Toilet Day, we asked Professor Val Curtis from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine how and why businesses should tackle this issue.

Professor Val Curtis

Director of the Environmental Health Group at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Val is a behavioural scientist who co-created Behaviour Centred Design, a new evolutionary approach to behaviour change. She helped to found the Global Public–Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap and the Toilet Board Coalition.

Val researches, teaches and consults on behaviour change and water, sanitation and hygiene with governments, international organisations and industry.source book of best practices entitled More Toilets Used by More People (PDF | 11MB), which shares consumer insights that can help us drive behaviour change.

And Lifebuoy soap has one of the largest handwashing behaviour-change programmes. By applying its insights to consumer behaviour change and marketing, the brand empowers mothers and school-aged children to make a habit of handwashing with soap at key occasions. While Lifebuoy still has a way to go before it reaches its target to get messages about handwashing to a billion people by 2020, it is a great example of a win-win between the public and the private sector.