Sustainability and Dimensions of a Nexus Approach in a Sharing Economy

Petra Schneider, Lukas Folkens, Andreas Meyer and Tino Fauk
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Petra Schneider: Department Water, Environment, Civil Engineering, and Safety, University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, D-39114 Magdeburg, Germany
Lukas Folkens: Department Water, Environment, Civil Engineering, and Safety, University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, D-39114 Magdeburg, Germany
Andreas Meyer: Department Water, Environment, Civil Engineering, and Safety, University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, D-39114 Magdeburg, Germany
Tino Fauk: Department Water, Environment, Civil Engineering, and Safety, University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, D-39114 Magdeburg, Germany

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-19

Abstract: Increasing global resource consumption puts the availability of natural mineral resources under significant pressure. One strategy to overcome this trend is the decoupling of economic growth and resource consumption and the application of circular economy approaches. These approaches aim at closing material cycles across sectoral boundaries. Beside these attempts, there are further options for action aimed at minimization of resource consumption through resource sharing approaches. This study investigates resource-saving potentials on different scales namely on a personal scale through sharing goods and services, but also in the frame of industrial symbiosis through sharing of secondary resources at a company scale. The environmental effects have been quantified using life cycle assessment examples for these two simulated cases. The results show for both resource consumption levels, resource savings potentials of up to 2 powers of ten, that can particularly be proven regarding the impact category ‘fossil resource depletion’. The emergence of industrial symbiosis can be identified by six factors: Resource, government, economy, company, technology, and society. The cases simulated in the study are supported by empirical evidence from real-life examples, which consider the mentioned factors.

Keywords: nexus approach; resource consumption and efficiency; sharing economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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