Ecological and socio-technical assessment of collaborative consumption: resource efficiency potentials

Ökologische und soziotechnische Bewertung des gemeinschaftlichen Konsums: Ressourceneffizienzpotenziale

Katrin Bienge (), Jens Clausen (), Paul Suski () and Martina Schmitt ()
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Katrin Bienge: Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy
Jens Clausen: Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability
Paul Suski: Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy
Martina Schmitt: Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy

Sustainability Nexus Forum, 2019, vol. 27, issue 2, No 5, 139-149

Abstract: Abstract Responsible consumption and production is one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. To achieve this goal the currently high extraction rates of natural resources, that our economy is based on, needs a transformation of the consumption and production system considering technological as well as social change. One of the promising transition approaches is seen in collaborative consumption with its many facets of socio-cultural innovations and fast growing number of participants and businesses. With a decreasing production of goods, due to a utilisation of underutilised assets, these offers might support an absolute reduction of the global resource use. However, a positive environmental effect depends on the setting and the social practices of such sharing offers and is not sustainable or resource efficient generally. Also, resource efficient practices with a low diffusion potential that stick in a niche offer no leverage to achieve sustainable consumption patterns. Thus, this paper describes a mixed method approach to analyse the resource efficiency and diffusion potential of 20 sharing offers in the area of mobility, housing & travel and everyday objects in Germany. Results show that the overall positive environmental connotation of sharing offers cannot be confirmed. We identified five clusters of offers that are all treated to be differently when it comes to deploying the positive potential and avoid unnecessary societal effort to achieve the mentioned Sustainable Development Goal.

Keywords: Material Footprint; Carbon Footprint; Sharing Economy; Resource efficiency potential; Diffusion paths (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1007/s00550-019-00489-7

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