At home we have a lot of stuff that we don’t use very often. This stuff can be borrowed by friends and family, but the last 10 years there has been an rise in the sharing economy where our stuff is borrowed or rented by others than friends and family. Colin Fitzpatrick explains more about this sharing economy.

Main takeaways

• Access or Sharing  Economies rent items or appliances temporarily  rather  than  selling  them permanently.
• Sharing Economies reduce  CRM  waste  by  reducing  the  number of  physical  appliances  or  equipment  manufactured  to  meet  our  needs.
• In a Product-Service  Economy,  the  sharing  is  based  on  leasing  a  good  from  a company  or  business  rather  than  from  another  consumer.
• In a Second-Hand  Economy,  consumers  sell  (or  give  away)  their  goods  to  other consumers, so ownership changes hand.
• The sharing economy model has  a  lower  environmental  and  cultural burden  through  mass  consumption,  corresponding  to  lower  CRM  usage  and  less end-of-life  CRM loss  using  current  recycling  processes.

Some extra reading, if you’d like to explore this topic further:

The Sharing Economy – Wikipedia

Putting the sharing economy into perspective

The Access Economy – Wikipedia

The sharing economy: Benefits of access over ownership