Interview Series: EarthEnable
EarthEnable was founded by Gayatri Datar and Rick Zuzow who started the company after taking “Design for Extreme Affordability”, a class with the Stanford d.school.
EarthEnable now provides Earthen flooring to families across Rwanda, eliminating unsanitary dirt floors from thousands of homes. The business is for-profit (owned by a registered non-profit in the US), but their ultimate mission is to eradicate dirt floors around the world — and they are well on their way to doing so!
EarthEnable are currently crowdfunding to bring clean floors to Uganda: https://www.generosity.com/medical-fundraising/bring-clean-floors-to-uganda--2
GROW FOR GOOD
JESS LITTMAN (EARTHENABLE)
Why are dirt floors such a big problem, and how are earthen floors providing the solution?
Gaya and Rick spent two weeks in Rwanda talking to people in villages about what they would want to improve in their homes and found that dirt floors were a huge problem. People were getting ill from the dust in the floors, and it was impossible to keep the household clean when the floor was made of dirt.
They returned to Stanford to work on a solution and discovered two things. The first was a study done in 2009 in Mexico in which the researchers replaced dirt floors with clean ones and found that the intervention led to a 49% reduction in diarrhoea and a 78% reduction in parasitic infections. The intervention also led to an increase in happiness in the parents because they were proud and happy in their homes.
The second thing they discovered is this concept of Earthen flooring (an ancient flooring design that has been revived in the US). People have begun to use earthen flooring instead of cement for their floors because cement is bad for the environment and is responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions.
The technology that EarthEnable has come up with is 75% cheaper than cement, which means our local Rwandan customers can finally afford a proper floor.
How did they know this was a problem in Rwanda, and why is it more important here than other places?
EarthEnable’s founders first found out about this problem when they traveled to Rwanda with the Design for Extreme Affordability class through Stanford d.school. They returned to Stanford to create the earthen flooring product that we now provide for our customers. When they decided to start the business, Rwanda came up as an obvious starting point because they first learned about the problem here. They did research on Rwanda and a number of other places, and found that Rwanda has a shockingly high percent of the population living on dirt floors — 80%! In addition, the business environment here is really great — Rwanda has been very welcoming to us. We’re now piloting to Uganda, and looking to expand around the world with a vision of eliminating dirt floors everywhere.
Is this a problem throughout Eastern Africa?
Yeah, it’s a problem throughout the developing world, everywhere that there are people sleeping on dirt floors, those floors hold bacteria and parasites. It is a problem in East Africa because of the level of poverty here, so the percentage of people living on a dirt floor is much higher. In Rwanda, 80% of the overall population and 90% of the rural population live dirt floors, and in Uganda, where we are currently expanding it is 70%. In most other countries, I believe that the percentage is lower, but certainly here it is a huge problem just because of the prevalence of people living on dirt floors.
How does EarthEnable operate? Are you for-profit or non-profit?
We have a blended revenue model, we are a registered non-profit in the US, and that non-profit owns EarthEnable Rwanda which is a for-profit business. Our aim is to eventually be profitable, and we do charge for the floors.
They are 75% cheaper than concrete, but the reason we charge for the floors is two-fold.
- It is well documented that social interventions like this one work better when people buy into them. We think people are more likely to clean and maintain their floors if they’ve paid for them than if they haven’t.
- There is over 1 billion people in the world living on dirt floors and we don’t think that donors are ever going to give the amount of money that we would need to build a floor for everyone.
We also have financing options; once you’ve paid enough for one room, we’ll do one room of your house. We’re working with the government and other local partners, as well as micro-finance institutions, to do everything that we can to make this as affordable as possible.
How do you find your customers across Rwanda?
Everybody wants the flooring; we found that 98% of people said that if this product was free they would take it, I’m not sure who the other 2% are, but nobody wants to live on a dirt floor. The challenge is getting our product out there and convincing people that it is as good as cement.
We have around 80 sales representatives, who sell door-to-door within their own villages. We also go to market days and bring music, brochures and either build a floor right there, or bring samples. We also have some advertisements on store fronts, and we just recently started doing radio ads.
Is there anything else you want to add?
Our mission is to provide clean, healthy, affordable flooring, our vision is to eliminate dirt flooring everywhere that it exists and as someone who has only been with the company for a short time, I can tell you that I fully believe that within 20 years we will eliminate dirt floors everywhere they exist.
EarthEnable are based in Kigali, Rwanda and are currently hiring for several positions. Find more information on their website: https://earthenable.org
EarthEnable are also currently crowdfunding to bring clean floors to Uganda: https://www.generosity.com/medical-fundraising/bring-clean-floors-to-uganda--2
