The value chain (VC) system is a key way to address important sanitation technological and institutional gaps in production and service delivery and could constitute a natural platform for development actions and also serve as a market systems approach to improve access to safely-managed sanitation. It has been suggested that sanitation could boost local and national economies and global interconnections with a growing recognition that the private sector can play a bigger role in delivering the Sustainable Development Goal for sanitation, and help businesses understand value-added and product opportunities. This book proposes a pathway towards re-thinking the sanitation value chain (SVC) and suggests that it should cover all processes, activities and products of enterprises/actors in the sanitation supply chain that provide value-added services within each stage. Following the Regenerative Sanitation Principles, this book presents a new perspective to the SVC known as the 'integrated functional sanitation value chain' (IFSVC) to address operational functions within sanitation systems in combination with sanitation enterprises, operators and external actors that support the growth of the sanitation economy. The underlying premise of this book is that the IFSVC represents a new perspective that would have major social, environmental and economic implications for local, national, regional and global sanitation service delivery. It is hoped that researchers, business leaders, entrepreneurs, government officials and funders will find this book valuable, and be inspired and enabled to carry sanitation work forward in their own spheres of operation. The book gives several examples of encouraging developments, particularly in technical and business model innovation. It is our hope that this book will provide the stimulus for new learning and its application, particularly through cross-disciplinary and cross-sector partnerships that bring together all the skills and capabilities needed to deliver a fully effective IFSVC.

This book proposes Regenerative Sanitation as the next era of sanitation management and attempts to provide a foundation for the study of sanitation on the premise that sanitation is a complex and dynamic system that comprises of social-ecological, technological and resource systems. The preconception is that sanitation will deliver maximal benefits to society only when there exists a cyclical integration of the three subsystems to enable appropriate linkages between 'technological design' and the 'delivery platform' so as to achieve optimal and sustained sani-solutions. It also calls for the rethinking of sanitation to change the narrative towards more progressive trajectories such as resource recovery and reuse rather than just amelioration. It explores the contributions to food security, livelihood support, urban regeneration, rural development and even local economies. A new paradigm, theory and ten principles for ensuring practical and effective sanitation solutions and management is presented. In addition is a unique conceptual framework applicable to both developed and developing countries, and to all stages, processes and cycles of delivering sanitation solutions that could critically evaluate, analyse and provide credible, adequate and appropriate sanitation solutions. All of which culminates in a strategic and practical application platform called 'Sanitation 4.0' that advocates for total rejuvenation and comprehensive overhaul with eight key strategic considerations for the implementation. Regenerative Sanitation: A New Paradigm For Sanitation 4.0 is inter and trans- disciplinary and encourages collaboration between engineers, scientists, technologists, social scientists and others to provide effective and practical user-centred solutions. It includes relevant case studies, examples, exercise and future research recommendations. It is written as both a textbook for researchers and students as well as a practitioners' guide for policymakers and professionals.