Assessing the Environmental Potential of Collaborative Consumption: Peer-to-Peer Product Sharing in Hammarby Sjöstad, Sweden

Abstract

Collaborative consumption—through sharing services—has been promoted as an important step in transforming current consumption patterns toward more sustainable practices. Whilst there are high expectations for sharing services, there are few studies on the potential environmental benefits and impacts of sharing services. This study aims to analyze the potential environmental impacts of a peer-to-peer (P2P) product sharing platform and potential integration with a package drop-off/pick-up service in the urban district of Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm, Sweden. A life cycle approach is adopted, taking into account product lifetime and use, the potential replacement of conventional products and services, impacts from digital infrastructure and their impacts on the environment. The results indicate that there is significant potential for these sharing services to reduce environmental impacts associated with production and consumption; primarily through avoiding production and reducing the production impacts of new product purchases. The results also illustrate potential synergies to integrate with the package drop-off/pick up service; where the impacts from shared products are further reduced by reducing transportation impacts through improved logistics. However, the results are dependent upon, and sensitive to, a number of methodological choices and assumptions; highlighting the need for greater knowledge on the use environmental assessments of sharing services.

Analysing Drivers and Barriers of Accommodation Sharing in Dubai Using the Grey-DEMATEL Approach

“…The Internet of Things and the Blockchain are the main technologies expected to influence the future of accommodation sharing [101,144]. For the next ten years, the sharing economy will continue to grow, and sustainability issues will be of significant concern for regulators, platform providers, individual providers, and users [71,83,145,146].…”

“…In sharing economies, the knowledge of consumer consumption behaviour, including synergy-generating practices, determine the actions and strategies for hospitality and tourism product positioning [60][61][62]. [15,35,66,[80][81][82][83] D6: The accommodation sharing system is user-friendly and highly informative [11,60,84,85] D7: Innovative technologies and social media greatly influence the adoption of accommodation sharing [15,23,66,86] Driven by rising environmental awareness and in order to have a more sustainable society people seek ways to increase the efficient use of their resources [63,87,88].…”

What if everyone becomes a sharer? A quantification of the environmental impact of access-based consumption for household laundry activities

“…Further, this study is a system analysis of a socio-technical system focussing on the environmental impact associated with sharing or individual ownership. Other systems that may be analysed in a similar manner are carsharing systems, bicycle-sharing systems, or other sharing systems for durables such as tools and clothes (Martin et al, 2019).…”

“…Both at the EU and the national level, there are new policies related to the circular economy, including policies to combat planned obsolescence, open up the repair sector and make repair more attractive to consumers (Maitre-Ekern & Dalhammar, 2016). In addition, some policies for the sharing economy are being adopted by local governments at the city level (Martin et al, 2019). However, generally, policies to support the sharing economy are fewer -as the developments are understood to be driven naturally by economic incentives -and these are of a "softer" nature involving more encouragement and support, rather than regulation or taxes (SOU, 2017).…”

“…A fair amount of literature on direct environmental impacts of the sharing economy revolves around transportation, accommodation, and small consumer goods. Several meta-reviews of the environmental impacts of sharing are available, for example, for car-sharing schemes (Chen & Kockelman, 2016;Jung & Koo, 2018), tools or clothes (Skjelvik, Erlandsen, & Haavardsholm, 2017) or the entire peer-to-peer sharing platform mediating the sharing of everyday items like skis, electric tools, cars, video games, bicycles and cooking equipment (Martin, Lazarevic, & Gullström, 2019).…”