CONSUMPTION

Track 3.7. Sharing and access-based consumption

Session owner:
Mikko Jalas, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

The ideas of sharing are core to sustainable consumption. Sharing covers a terrain from the development of new access-based business practices (Bardhi and Eckhardt 2012) and models of alternative economies to ways of organising access through community ownership and control of assets (Martin 2016). As a circular economy business practice, sharing is argued to contribute to the ‘narrowing’ of the pools of resources, and efficient delivery of services (Bocken et al 2016; Geissdoerfer et al 2017). Companies not selling goods but services, and consumers not owning goods but renting or sharing them intensifies and streamlines consumption, and holds potential to increase the service life of products.

Sharing as the development of access-based consumption has nevertheless been criticised for the concentration of power in a platform economy (Martin 2016). Digital platforms, including prominent examples or AirBnB and Uber mark the intensification and concentration of the service economy. Sharing and access-based consumption hence call for attention on who owns capital assets, controls access to markets and organises consumption opportunities (Jalas and Numminen 2022).

This track invites contributions on sharing and access-based consumption relating to following

• Business practices and design solutions for sharing and access-based consumption
• Feasibility and drivers of sharing and access-based consumption in different product categories and use contexts
• Sustainability benefits of sharing and access-based consumption
• Critical assessment of broader social conditions and consequences of sharing and access-based consumption
• Public policies, grass-roots action and other non-business drivers of sharing