The HCES Approach

Download the HCES Guidelines

English (pdf, 615kB)		Español (pdf, 1,8MB)		Français (pdf, 388kB)

The ‘Household-Centred Environmental Sanitation’ model is strongly based on the Bellagio Principles. It offers the promise of overcoming the shortcomings of business as usual because its two components correct existing unsustainable practices of planning and resource management.

HCES is a radical departure from past central planning approaches.

As shown in the figure, it places the stakeholder at the core of the planning process and the approach responds directly to the needs and demands of the user.

It is based on the following principles: Stakeholders are members of a “zone”, and act as members of that zone (“zones” range from households to the nation). Participation is based on the manner in which those zones are organised (for example, communities and neighbourhoods consist of households, towns consist of communities etc.). Zones may be defined by political boundaries (for example city wards and towns) or reflect common interests (for example watersheds or river basins).

• Decisions are reached through consultation with all stakeholders affected by the decision, in accordance with the methods selected by the zone in question (for example, votes at national level in a democratic system, town hall meetings at local level or informal discussions at neighbourhood level).
  
• Problems should be solved as close to their source as possible (for example, where feasible, a community should provide services to households within it; common wastewater treatment facilities for several communities should be provided by a consortium of the communities). Only if the affected zone is unable to solve the problem should the problem be “exported”, i.e. referred to the zone at the next level.
• Decisions and the responsibility for implementing them flow from the household to the community to the city and finally to the central government (there may also be intervening zones that need to be considered; for example, wards within the city, districts within a province; or provinces within the nation). Thus, individual households determine what on-site sanitation they want. Together with other households, they decide on the piped water system they want for their community, together with other communities, they determine how the city should treat and dispose its wastewater. Policies and regulations are determined by central government with implementation delegated to the appropriate levels flowing towards the household.

Circular System of Resource Management

An important principle of the HCES approach is to minimise waste transfer across circle boundaries by minimising waste-generating inputs and maximum recycling/reuse activities in each circle. In contrast to the current linear system, the Circular System of Resource Management (CSRM) emphasises conservation (reducing imports) of resources as well as recycling and reuse of resources used (minimising exports).

Resources in the case of environmental sanitation are water, goods used by households, commerce and industry, and rainwater. The circular system practises what economists preach: waste is a misplaced resource. By applying this concept, the circular system reduces “downstream” pollution.

Click here to find out more