Shareconomics reloaded

The principle of “collaborative consumption”, which we covered earlier this year in our article on “shareconomics”, is being manifested in an ever-greater variety of ways in our (consumer) lives.

New buzzwords like “shareconomics” and “communal consumption” are evidence that the principle of sharing – and thus of common action – has meantime become far more than a purely economic or ecological idea; it is becoming a way of life, or perhaps rather a way of survival. “In the future, those who would go it alone instead of seeking cooperative solutions will have fewer and fewer opportunities to survive. This applies to individuals as well as to companies and organizations” (TrendUpdate 09/2011, Zukunftsinstitut). The sharing economy is not necessarily about earning money or receiving fair compensation in return for providing something. What makes the sharing economy unique is the element of generosity. This new understanding of “sharing” encompasses trading, donating and giving in every guise imaginable.

Swap parties are one manifestation of the phenomenon, as is an idea called “Givebox”. “Sharing is caring” is the slogan behind the giveboxes, the first specimen of which (in the world) was set up this year in Berlin. Since then, giveboxes have been turning up in cities across Germany. People can drop off their giveaways – clothes, toys, kitchen items, books, etc. – and take something from the box in return if they want.

The Givebox project is exemplary of the defining characteristic of many projects of the sharing movement, namely their communal character. Many of these new online swap networks and offline projects are based on the principle of short distances between members and are aimed at galvanizing communal thinking, consciousness and action. The extended family is being replaced by neighborly togetherness. Thanks to social media we can quickly and easily come into contact with people who we’d never (or probably never) meet without the bridge of the internet, even though they often only live just a few meters away from us. The internet, our smartphones and location services are all removing the hurdles to lending our neighbors a helping hand. An urban gardening project in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district called Prinzessinnengärten, or “princess gardens”, is a prime example of the type of “active citizenship” and local self-organization that is gaining ground around the world. The gardens are open to anyone willing to trade their knowledge, labor and time – and not least of all their money – for products grown there and available at the on-site café. Like other urban gardening sites popping up all over the world, the “princess gardens” are an economic-crisis-driven phenomenon and they bear witness to a deep-seated and widespread consumer skepticism. Another example of a self-supplying community is a project called Löwengarten, or “lions garden”, a food cooperative about 70 km from Berlin. The cooperative farm, which is certified by the Demeter organic farming label, has about 140 customers in the greater Berlin area, each of whom agrees to pay €40 a month as harvest pay-in and to live and work on the farm for three days a year. In return, coop members can pick up seasonal vegetables every week at one of seven community depots in Berlin.

Foodswap.org, frents.com, spreet.it – these and other sites let users barter and swap everything under the sun for home and garden. Location-based neighborhood swap markets like Germany’s nachbarschaftsauto.de (“neigborhoodcar”) represent an ever-growing, independent market. This system of exchange that bypasses supermarkets and corporations not only ensures that existing resources are used more efficiently and extends the life of household items and other useful objects, it’s also good for the environment – and last but not least engenders a feeling of belonging and loyalty that extends from a person’s immediate neighborhood to the streets and the wider municipality around them. Couch surfing and ride-sharing have taught us to once again open up our homes and our car doors to strangers. And once again it’s the internet that’s facilitating the movement, with its rating mechanisms providing the game rules to which all players must adhere. “Technology is enabling trust between strangers,” says US writer Lisa Gansky, author of “The Mesh. Why the Future of Business is Sharing”. On the web and in the neighborhood – trust is its own currency. Social control is exercised on the internet in the form of positive reviews; in local communities it is a function of the fact that people encounter their neighbors again and again.

Companies too have many options and opportunities to help them implement the idea of sharing. Of course, the focus here must be on authenticity, credibility and above all clear and direct customer benefit. “Random acts of kindness” is one variation on the sharing theme that is being embraced by businesses. As part of a social media campaign, UK flower delivery company Interflora scoured Twitter messages to find people who needed a boost (missed the bus, it's raining and I don’t have an umbrella, there’s no more coffee ...). The company contacted senders of glum messages to ask if it could deliver some flowers to cheer them up. If the response was positive, Interflora sent them a free bouquet. Die Welt am Sonntag recently called on its readers to pass their newspaper along to a neighbor after reading it and even provided an envelope to do so. Berlin-based fashion label Schmidttakahashi has made sharing a fundamental corporate value. It collects old garments and turns them into one-of-a-kind pieces in a deliberate effort to counter our addiction to waste. The designing duo Schmidt and Takahashi want to take a stand against the negative impact of companies like H&M and Zara. Cheap, mass-manufactured apparel produces garbage, creates social inequalities and harms the environment. It results in ever-greater amounts of used clothing, with the huge surplus destroying textile markets and jobs in Africa. Anyone who donates a piece of clothing to Schmidttakahashi is asked about its history, must provide an email address and receives an identification number. Photos let people see where their donated item is now and what eventually became of it once it was combined with other garments. Buyers get to know the stories behind their newly acquired designer piece thanks to a unique QR code.

The sharing trend heralds what Professor Niko Paech, an economist in the production and environment department of the University of Oldenburg, has termed the “post-growth economy”. He is convinced that economic growth must be overcome in order to rescue the ecological basis of our existence. Paech advocates a resilient lifestyle encompassing activities that create meaning and value and are independent of oil, industry and money. “Modern subsistence services” is his term for repairing and upgrading, as well as producing for own-consumption in communities, on balconies and in urban garden plots. The future lies in “barter relationships in close social proximity” and the “use of consumer goods in small groups”. Well, that’s one way to describe “sharing”.