Shared Ownership

Change of ownership,

Currently there is becoming more and more a trend towards shared ownership instead of actually owning your products. Examples of product like these are greenwheels, the NS public transport bike and Airbnb. For me as an Industrial Designer who is focussed on sustainability is that a very interesting direction, I think that this direction should be stimulated even more. Products on itself will create a much lower impact if they are used more efficiently. If the car for example will be used by whoever in the need of a car, and only pays for its functionality/service, than the total cars needed in the area can be reduced very much. There is nothing more useless than a product that is not able to fulfil its functions. The main problem in this lies still within the mentality of users, and the wish to own products. This differs per society as some societies are much more focussed on collectivism instead of individualism. If you look at the Hofstede Model, which includes how a country behaves at these points, you’ll find that countries that have a high welfare with a lot of consumer products score high on individualism. Therefore are much less used to the fact of sharing things within their society. When these findings are merged, there can be concluded that there must become a higher shift with the higher income countries towards a shared community. If the mind-set changes users will benefit because using a service gives the opportunity of receiving a higher product/service for a lower price. Secondly, the total impact of the product for the environment decreases because it will be used more efficiently and therefore the total amount of products will decrease. In this time of era in which everyone and everything is connected with each other, the tools to apply this are already there. The main challenge is how to implement this in society and how to let the higher income countries accept these new values. One of the main drivers is still money, as the example of Airbnb shows. The company succeeded with its business plan because of the economical prices, when people founded out that in times of low money a room that is not used is worth money. Therefore the most suitable way to get more higher income users involved is by promoting its financial benefit, and make users more aware of the existence of shared ownership.