Collaborative consumption : sharing our way towards sustainability

• Main Author: Samuel, Couture-Brière
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/51666

Collaborative consumption(CC)refers to activities surrounding the sharing, swapping, or trading of goods and services within a collaborative consumption community. First, this MA thesis evaluates the factors contributing to the rapid increase of CC initiatives. These factors include technology, personal economics, environmental concerns, and social interaction. Second, the thesis explores the prospects and limits of CC in terms of sustainability. The most promising prospect is that CC seems to generate social capital and initiate a value shift away from ownership. However, institutional forces promoting growth limit this potential. The thesis concludes that CC itself is not enough to achieve sustainability, and therefore, more political solutions are needed. The paper ends with a critical discussion on the future of our growth-based economic model by suggesting that certain forms of CC could represent the roots of a “post- growth” economy. === Arts, Faculty of === Political Science, Department of === Graduate