Abstract:
The existing state of sanitation in developing Asian countries fails to deliver a level of
service that is adequate for meeting the human right to a standard of living consistent
with dignity and health, or for sustaining the capacity for future generations to have
access to clean water resources and healthy ecosystems. We argue that translating the
current neo-centralised technologies and institutional arrangements mainstreamed by
industrialised countries would not resolve the problem in the context of developing
countries. Instead it is necessary to ‘leap frog’ to the emerging technological and
institutional arrangements that are responsive to current needs and contexts and to
potential risks. The sustainability focus and often decentralised technologies of this
emergent stage in sanitation present many opportunities for new actors to enter the urban
sanitation industry. At the same time, there are many barriers to entry, particularly from
the perspective of conventional business management focused on increasing shareholder
value.
We propose that perspectives from the corporate social responsibility discourse have the
potential to provide both the ‘pull’ for seizing the business opportunity for profit while
serving social needs, and the ‘push’ to overcome the barriers in order to serve a wider
social purpose for corporations. The wealth of nations, at least as reported in ubiquitous
GDP terms, has greatly increased through the activities of corporations driven by a profit
motive; but the increased poverty, injustice and ecosystem degradation that has resulted
from economic activity suggests that corporations perhaps ought to have regard for
broader concerns beyond shareholder value. We explore how the alternative relational
view of a corporation, as a metaphorical person within society who adopts a moral code
consistent with both Buddhist economics and Adam Smith’s philosophy, may facilitate
profitable corporations that provide better economic, ecological and social outcomes
in serving the need for sustainable sanitation services in developing Asian countries.
