HUL joins Swachh Bharat with hygiene centre in Mumbai

Hindustan Unilever has built a water, hygiene and sanitation community centre in Mumbai, linking the move to government's Swachh Bharat campaign through its global sustainability agenda.

The two-storied centre which has toilets, bathrooms, drinking water dispenser and a laundromat--all using HUL brands such as Rin Lifebuoy and Domex--took nearly six months to build. Suvidha, the members-only, paid centre, is located at Azad Nagar, a slum which was hit by a landslide in 2000, adjacent to a hill in Ghatkopar, Mumbai. It has been built in partnership with Pratha Samajik Sanstha and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, which alotted the land.

HUL said the initiative was triggered after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met its global chief Paul Polman in February this year and urged him to focus on urban sanitation apart from rural initiatives. “There will be a huge urbanisation drive in the country and in big cities like Delhi or Mumbai, 30 to 40 per cent of people live in slums where infrastructure is weak, safe water, hygiene and sanitation are missing," Sanjiv Mehta, MD at Hindustan Unilever.


Unilever can find common ground between its global Sustainable Living Plan 2020 and Swachh Bharat, a mass agenda that aims to build more than 800 million toilets and modern sewage systems to make India free from open defecation and open drains.

The brands that have strong alignment with social responsibility perform better than others. A study by Nielsen has found the propensity to buy or pay more by consumers goes up significantly when they know there is a worthy purpose behind the brand.

HUL attributes growth of Lifebuoy, one of the fastest-growing brands of HUL, to its hand-wash campaign. “When you look after your consumers and community, shareholders' value gets created. In India, our initiatives have been carried much before CSR became fashionable,” added Mehta.