Informal Sharing and Heritage

What?

Users that share products in a self-driven and un-systematised manner.

Why?

This approach taps into the current sharing paradigm that focuses on prolonging the lifespan of a product. Sharing and heritage can be:

• An economic advantage.
• A way of passing on/creating emotional value in a product.

Challenges

• Products may not fit new users.
• Unwanted traces of time and use in product may occur such as e.g. smell and stains.

Examples

• People tend to share valuable and little used items, such as baby clothing or fur garments.
• Swapping parties, as with the Copenhagen Fashion Exchange.
• The Freecycle network locally connects people willing to give away free items for others to benefit.

Further Reading

Eden (2017). Blurring the Boundaries: Prosumption, Circularity and Online Sustainable Consumption Through Freecycle. Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), 265-285.

Klepp & Laitala (2018). Shared Use and Owning of Clothes: Borrow, Steal or Inherit. In: Contemporary Collaborative Consumption. Springer.

Muñoz & Cohen (2015). Sharing Cities and Sustainable Consumption and Production: Towards an Integrated Framework. Journal of Cleaner Production, 134, 87-97.