Life-cycle costs approach : costing sustainable services

Estimating the true cost of extending sustainable WASH services to poor households is an on-going problem for WASH service providers. How can we achieve the most while spending the least? This briefing note describes the life-cycle costs approach and the main cost components for water and sanitation in rural and peri-urban areas. It uses a regulatory accounting approach to calculate aggregated total expenditure costs and provides a step-by step approach to comparing and reporting costs.