Announcing Toilet Board Coalition New Chairman, Vice-Chair and Board Members!

Jay OwenSustainability News, Beyond GDP

Media Release
15 September 2017

Toilet Board Coalition Announces New Chairman, Vice-Chair & Board Members

The Toilet Board Coalition (TBC), the world’s first business-led platform focused on accelerating market-based sanitation solutions, has appointed Charlie Beevor, Global Vice-President Household Cleaning Brands, Unilever as Chairman, and Dr. Bérangère Magarinos-Ruchat, Global Head of Sustainability, Firmenich as Vice-Chair. Mr. Beevor and Dr. Magarinos-Ruchat have been elected by the TBC Steering Committee for a two-year term commencing 1 September, 2017.

The TBC is a business led public-private partnership. Its members are multinational corporations, development expert NGOs / IGOs and social investors?—?all dedicated to ensuring smart, sustainable sanitation systems for the future while delivering sanitation to all.

Speaking after his appointment as chairman, Mr. Beevor said, “The sanitation crisis is one of the biggest societal challenges of our time, but one for which solutions are available. Together with Governments, experts and NGOs, businesses small & large have a clear role to play in addressing this crisis and to unlock business opportunities from it. The Toilet Board Coalition aims to accelerate the sanitation economy, thereby providing a sustainable contribution to the UN’s SDG of ‘Access to Sanitation for all’.  We have made significant progress since 2014, but there is much more to be done.  I am honoured to take up the chairmanship of the coalition as it moves to deliver impact at greater scale.”

Mr. Beevor has served as a member of the TBC Steering Committee since its inception in 2014 and as Vice-Chair 2016-2017. He also sits on the board of Clean Team, a sanitation business in Ghana which was part of the TBC’s first Toilet Accelerator cohort. Through his roles at Unilever in several developing markets, Mr. Beevor has seen first hand the impact of poor sanitation, as well as the social and business benefits that come from when the issue is addressed.

“As a founding member of the Toilet Board Coalition, I deeply believe in the power of partnerships. By collaborating with government agencies, sanipreneurs, investors and innovators we can reshape the Sanitation Economy for good.” said Dr. Bérangère Magarinos-Ruchat, Global Head of Sustainability, Firmenich. “At Firmenich our business is in advancing the science of smell. It is our role to shift the paradigm by bringing breakthrough technologies that effectively counter malodor, as well as introduce biodegradable and environmental solutions that are sustainable long-term.”      

 “Charlie and Be?range?re bring a formidable power to the new leadership of the TBC. I am extremely motivated by what we are setting out to accomplish in the next two years”, said Cheryl Hicks, Executive Director, Toilet Board Coalition.

Additionally, the Toilet Board Coalition is pleased to announce the following Steering Committee appointments effective 1 September, 2017: Pascale Guiffant, Deputy Vice President of Sustainable Development & Reputation, Suez, and Rajeev Kher, Founder and Managing Director, Saraplast as Independent Directors. Ms. Guiffant brings extensive experience in corporate waste management to the board and Mr. Kher, the G20’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2017, will serve as the TBC’s first entrepreneur on the board.

Sarah D’Arbeloff, Global Technology Business Development, Firmenich, Daigo Ishiyama, Product Specialist, LIXIL, John Sauer, Senior Technical Advisor Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Population Services International and Jay Bhagwan, Executive Manager: Water Use and Waste Management, Water Research Commission join the TBC’s Partnership Council.

“We continue to expand our expertise and offering from the TBC by welcoming new executives from business and the global sanitation community to the board this year. We also take this opportunity to thank Mauricio Troncoso and Kimberly-Clark for their strategic leadership as Chair over the past year,” concluded Ms. Hicks.

In 2016 the TBC launched the Toilet Accelerator programme to support entrepreneurs in low-income markets to scale commercially sustainable sanitation business models. On World Toilet Day 2016 the TBC released two thought-leadership pieces which outline new business opportunity spaces in sanitation for the next decade: Sanitation in the Circular Economy and The Digitisation of Sanitation which can be found at www.toiletboard.org.

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