Broad access to basic sanitation can generate BRL 1.4 trillion to Brazil, study shows

Bringing potable water supply and sewage collection and treatment to the entire Brazilian population goes beyond ensuring quality of life, health and environmental preservation. Basic sanitation can also bring economic benefits to the country.

According to the study “Economic and Social Benefits of the Expansion of Brazilian Sanitation 2022”, carried out by the Trata Brasil Institute and prepared by the Ex Ante consultancy, if Brazil starts to serve its entire population over the next 20 years with basic sanitation , this can yield the country more than R$ 1.4 trillion in socio-economic benefits.

The president of Instituto Trata Brasil, Luana Siewert Pretto, explains that the study takes into account the past – how much the investment in basic sanitation brought gains and cost reductions between 2005 and 2019 – but mainly how much Brazil can gain in the next two decades.

“We chose to create a scenario of universal sanitation, assessing the perpetuity of this gain over the next 20 years. We could have evaluated until 2033, which is the goal established by the Marco do Saneamento, but we evaluated the gains until 2040, considering, then, the deadline for universalization.”

Need to improve

According to Pretto, there was an improvement in access to basic sanitation between 2005 and 2020, but there is still a lot to evolve in this sector in the country. In 2005, 81.7% of the Brazilian population (138.4 million) received water supply at home and 39.5% (66.9 million) had sewage treatment. Fifteen years later, coverage of access to treated water increased to 84.1% of the population, or 175.4 million people, and the sewage network was expanded to 55% of the population, or 114.6 million people.

This means that almost half of the Brazilian population remains without access to sanitary sewage systems, using septic tanks or throwing sewage directly into nature. The latest data from the National Sanitation Information System (SNIS), released in 2020, show that 33.1 million people do not have access to treated water and 94 million do not have access to sewage collection and treatment.

If we consider the regional cuts, the North registers only 13.1% of the population with access to the sewage collection network. In the Southeast, the percentage jumps to 80.5% of the covered population and, in the Midwest, 59.5%. In the South, treated sewage does not reach more than half of the inhabitants (52.6%) and in the Northeast it lacks for 69.7% of the population.

With universal access to basic sanitation, the health, tourism and real estate sectors would benefit most in terms of economic returns. In the case of health, the study estimates that between 2021 and 2040, savings due to improvements in the health scenario would be BRL 25.1 billion, an annual gain of BRL 1.25 billion.

The income gains from tourism could reach R$ 4 billion per year. If the accumulated period from 2021 to 2040 is considered, the value would reach around R$ 80 billion.

“In Brazil we have an average of 30 tourists for every 1000 inhabitants, and with all the diversity of flora and fauna, with the cleanup of rivers and seas, Brazil can indeed attract more tourists. Argentina, for example, currently has 150 tourists for every 1000 inhabitants, very different from our average, and heated tourism generates income and drives the local economy,” says Luana.

Real estate appreciation would reach R$ 2.4 billion per year, or R$ 48 billion in 20 years. This value was calculated taking as a reference the annual evolution of the housing stock from 2021 to 2040 and the expected real estate appreciation due only to the improvement of sanitation conditions.

Luana Pretto emphasizes that Brazil continues with the commitment assumed with the Legal Framework for Basic Sanitation, of having 99% of the population with access to drinking water supply and 90% with access to sewage collection and treatment by 2033, with a possible extension of deadline to 2040 for some cases.