Rental Service

What?

Re-use of products through rental services such as subscription services and leasing. Rental services as a concept is part of the sharing economy societal paradigm.

Why?

Rental service models can minimise use of resources by potentially extending the product lifespan.

Challenges

• Products should be designed for extensive use, which can be a design challenge.
• Users may not want to pay for used products.

Examples

• Rental services can offer complete solutions, like the sub-scription based baby clothing company Vigga, now part of Circos.
• Rental services may provide single items such as designer bags from rentabag.dk,
• Belgian company, Mud Jeans leases jeans made of organic and recycled cotton for a monthly fee.

Further Reading

Fletcher & Grose (2012). Fashion & Sustainability: Design for Change. Laurence King Publishing, London.

Petersen & Riisberg (2017). Cultivating User-ship? Developing a circular system for the acquisition and use of baby clothing. Fashion Practice 9(2), pp. 214-234.

Schor & Fitzmaurice (2015). Collaborating and connecting: the emergence of the sharing economy. In: Reisch & Thøgersen (eds.). Handbook of Research on Sustainable Consumption, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 410-425.