Sharing economy and sustainable transitions : the role of product-service systems and political consumerism

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Sharing economy and sustainable transitions: the role of

product-service systems and political consumerism

Bachelors Thesis – Final version

Hoogenstrijd, Thijs 10189734

BSc ECB - Bachelors Thesis Universiteit van Amsterdam Supervisor: Willem Dorresteijn Words: 8661

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Thijs Hoogenstrijd, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

The success of new sharing economy initiatives, coupled with increasing

environmental concerns and searches for new alternatives have led to the sharing economy discourse becoming more and more important over the last decade. In the light of sustainable transitions, collaborative consumption could prove to be a developing niche with great potential to change the way we think about consuming. Peerby, a product-service system (PSS) platform, is one of these niches. This quantitative study measured the roles of the use of Peerby, by comparing users of the platform against regular consumers, on ecological

consciousness and political consumerism amongst 60 respondents. Four hypotheses were analysed to research this influence and which were coupled to the sustainable transitions model. Three of the four hypotheses did not find any supported evidence. Peerby users were more ecological conscious, but there was no difference in political consumerism. Moreover, users indicated that the use of the platform did not change their consumer behaviour or views. They did, however, show that they think PSSs can operate as a platform to allow for different ways and views of consumption. This means that PSSs do have the potential to operate as a gateway to more sustainable consumption via niche innovation, influencing the current regime. However, in light of the current landscape, it seems that this is not something of the near future yet.

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1. Introduction

Since the creation of platforms such as Airbnb and Uber, interest in the nature of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption, and the impact it has on the market, has been growing rapidly amongst entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers (Martin, 2016). The sharing economy refers to for-profit and non-profit exchanges that are usually expedited through online platforms, which aim to give access to unexploited resources via sharing (Richardson, 2015). In the case of Airbnb this resource would be ones apartment, in the case of Uber ones car. Interest in these companies is rising since there are now seventeen „billion-dollar companies‟ inherent to this sharing economy (Newlands, 2015). Airbnb and Uber, mere entrepreneurial start-ups only a few years ago, are also a part of this list. To add to this perspective, PWC (2014) estimates that the current global annual revenues for the sharing economy are $15bn, and this could potentially grow towards $335bn in 2025. This commercial success has led to criticism and resistance towards unregulated peer-to-peer marketplaces which could have conflicting social impacts, such as for example in the case of Uber and regular taxi companies (Martin, 2016).

Simultaneously, there is also substantial interest in using the sharing economy for positive social impacts. Researchers have explored the effects of the sharing economy on creating community (Albinsson & Perera, 2012), but most notably on its implications for sustainability (Barnes & Mattsson, 2016; Martin, Upham & Budd, 2015). Heinrichs (2013) goes as far as to call the sharing economy a new possible road towards sustainability, especially in the field of production and consumption of goods and services, which have remained critically challenged by environmental sustainability. Moreover, Botsman and Rogers (2010) argue that the sharing economy will rattle the unsustainable hyper-consumption practices that embody capitalist economists. Their main argument for this change is that the sharing economy facilitates a transition away from a culture where assets are owned by the consumer and towards a culture where access to assets is shared by consumers.

This change in the consumers‟ mind-sets is facilitated by the various sharing activities that encompass the sharing economy (Albinsson & Perera, 2012) as well as the fact that current consumption levels and patterns are widely recognized as unsustainable (Piscicelli, Cooper & Fisher, 2015). Mainly due to over-consumption and a throwaway culture, environmental issues such as resource depletion and waste occur. A possible solution to prevent this is through using collaborative consumption as a means for reducing new purchases and promoting reuse of products. Recent developments in collaborative consumption business models have been influenced by this drive for sustainability (Barnes & Mattsson, 2016). However, contrast to this is that recent research shows that there is no support found for the environmental impact being a determinant for whether people participate in collaborative consumption, and that it is mostly decided by trust, utility and cost saving factors (Mohlmann, 2015; Barnes & Mattsson, 2016).

A different determinant for participation in collaborative consumption could be political consumerism. Political consumerism is defined as: “the use of market action as an area for politics, and consumer choice as a political tool” (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012, p. 885). Newman & Bartels (2011) add a social, ethical and ecological element to this definition. Bardhi & Eckhardt (2012) expand on this idea by arguing that a consumer‟s choice of consumption, namely ownership versus access, can be a strategy used to express their ideological interests. In their case of car sharing this effect was not found, however; they argue that with different types of access there could be different results and the role of political consumerism in the shift of sociocultural politics of consumption should be researched further. Bossy (2014) agrees, as he argues that political consumerism can serve as more than merely political boycotts; however, the avenues to do so are limited. As such, the

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focus in this research will be towards one of these avenues called product service systems (PSS) platforms. It is these PSSs that form a great appeal to the consumers with that changing mind-set mentioned earlier. As Botsman and Rogers (2010) state: “They want the benefits of a product, but they don‟t need to own the product outright” (p. 30). Moreover, they can function as one of the avenues that Bossy (2014) argues are missing for people to express their ideological views through consumerism.

Since the sharing economy is such a complex discourse with contradicting opinions, many frame it as a disruptive innovation that could change the market economies (Martin, 2016). Most of the sharing economy practices occur on a small local scale, and they represent ways in which consumers are opposing the conventional consumption-oriented paradigm through integrating a more sustainable ideology into their practices (Albinsson & Perera, 2012). For this reason, I will turn to the field of sustainable transitions and view this issue from a transition perspective (Geels, 2002). The sharing economy can be seen as a niche innovation, which as it develops could influence or even change existing regimes (Martin, 2016; Geels, 2005). Product-service systems are part of the sharing economy and could pose as a development that can influence the regime of markets and user practices, which involve the way we think about consumption and our consumer behaviour. As such, this paper aims to find out if there is a relationship between the usage of product service systems and the influence this has on consumer behaviour, more specifically on their political consumerism behaviour. Therefore, the aim of this research is: to investigate how product service systems (PSSs) influence political consumerism in the current market and user practice regime. The goal is to find out whether these systems allow consumers to more freely express their ideological views through engaging in political consumerism. Furthermore, the effect this has on the transition of the current regime will be assessed and further implications for the market regime will be discussed.

The next section of this paper will first dive into the available literature regarding these topics, to aid in conceptualizing and defining the concepts at hand. Following this, I will present the theoretical framework. Here, the different concepts will be linked together to one clear model which serves as the basis for my research. Here, the outline of the research is also given including the hypotheses that will be researched. Subsequently, the research methods are explained, to show how the data was gathered and analysed. Then the research results are presented, aided with graphs and figures. Finally, I discuss the implications of the results for political consumerism and product-service systems, and try to give some insight in what this could mean for the market regime.

2. Literature review

2.1 Collaborative consumption

Research on collaborative consumption has seen a great increase since recent years as the market around it steadily developed. It even got coined by Time Magazine as one of 10 ideas that will change the world. (Albinsson & Perera, 2012). Collaborative consumption was first spoken of by Felson and Spaeth (1978). The definition back then existed of events where one or more persons consume goods or services while engaging in activities with one another, for example using a washing machine in a shared house or sharing a car ride. A rather basic definition compared to modern day collaborative consumption which has created various forms of new service and business models and moreover, has become a means to facilitate a reduction in personal consumption (Botsman & Rogers, 2010). Defining the role of collaborative consumption within the sharing economy shows that researchers vary in what they view as key to the concept; however, as will become clear they can be very much alike depending on the way they are defined.

Richardson (2015) gives three key elements that determine whether one operates in the sharing economy: having an online platform, being peer-to-peer and being access-based.

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Recent years have seen an emphasis towards the technological driven side of collaborative consumption. Barnes and Mattsson (2016) define collaborative consumption as “the use of online marketplaces and social networking technologies to facilitate peer-to-peer sharing of resources between individuals, who may be both suppliers and consumers” (p. 200). They argue it is embedded within the sharing economy. Belk (2013) gives a slightly different definition, by adding the element of a fee or other compensation. As such, the definition also entails giving and receiving monetary settlements next to non-monetary compensation. This falls in line with the definition of access-based consumption given by Bardhi and Eckhardt (2012). They bring together collaborative consumption and sharing, where the former is a subset of access-based consumption called market-mediated access. Bardhi and Eckhardt (2012) observe that “instead of buying and owning things, consumers want access to goods and prefer to pay for the experience” (p. 881). This opens up the sharing economy definition for being more than just a non-monetary activity of trading, swapping, and bartering and so on. It shows that collaborative consumption is a rapidly growing experience with lots of variants (Belk, 2013).

2.2 Product Service Systems (PSS)

Botsman and Rogers (2010) organized thousands of examples of collaborative consumption and divided it into three types of systems. Firstly, redistribution markets provide a system where used and pre-owned goods are moved from somewhere they are not needed to somewhere where they are. It proves to be a key form of sustainable commerce and could become a fifth „R‟, joining the ranks of “reduce, reuse, recycle and repair”. Collaborative lifestyles is the second system and is the most well-known system within the sharing economy. It puts together people with similar needs or interests in order to share less-tangible assets such as time, space, skills and money. These exchanges happen mostly on a local level, through for example working spaces; however, the global level is showing an increasing amount of activity too, mainly through services such as Airbnb. The final system is product service systems. Product-service systems (PSS) are classified as „use-oriented‟ and „result-oriented‟, by giving access to privately owned possessions within a community, offering a final result instead of a traditional product (Piscicelli et al., 2015). Examples of such platforms are Freecycle, Streetbank and Peerby, the latter of which will be the focus in this research. The introduction of these platforms has allowed consumers to use product service systems on a daily basis. They appeal to the increasing number of consumers who have a shifting mindset regarding usage, where they want the benefit of a product but do not feel the need to own it outright (Botsman & Rogers, 2010).

Botsman and Rogers were the first researchers to link the concept of product-services systems to collaborative consumption. However, many researches in the last decade in the EU have paid attention to product-service systems (Tukker & Tischner, 2006). This was mainly due to increased awareness of environmental issues, which caused businesses and governments to become pressured to lower environmental impact (Roy, 2000). One of the first definitions was given by Goedkoop et al. (1999); they defined PSS as a mix of products and services in a system that provides functionality for consumers and reduces environmental pressure. Mont (2002) highlights the use of these systems to reduce the environmental impact through alternative scenarios of product use. Key elements are the product, the service and the combination of products, services and their relationships (Beuren et al., 2013). Most authors on PSS literature consider it as simply a competitive proposal for satisfying customer demands. However, some authors claim that PSS has more to offer, and instead aim at sustainability through a balance between environmental, economic and social concerns (Beuren et al., 2013). Along with the environmental issue, business literature also showed interest into functional business models regarding PSS (Tukker & Tischner, 2006). By

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focusing on the final needs of a customer, companies could improve their position on the value chain, give added value and improve on their innovation. As such, PSS could provide both enhancements to sustainability as well as to competitiveness. However, research on the topic agrees that there are a few uncertainties in regard to the applicability and feasibility of PSSs (Mont, 2002; Tukker & Tischner, 2006; Vezzoli, Ceschin, Diehl & Kohtala, 2015). These issues usually involve; the willingness of companies to adopt PSS business models, the readiness of consumers to accept them and the environmental implications.

The environmental aspect has always been one of the key drivers in PSS research (Tukker & Tischner, 2006). Even though it has not been the central aspect of research, it is mentioned in every piece written on PSS‟s. The other issue, namely the willingness of companies to adopt PSS, has been written on in large fashion (Barquet et al., 2013; Boons et al., 2013; Ceschin, 2013; Geum & Park, 2011; Vezzoli et al., 2012; Vezzoli et al., 2015). Questions such as how can companies create and offer value to their customers, how this value can be produced and delivered and how can companies interact with customers and partners represent the challenges that companies face when implementing PSS. Barquet et al. (2013) give a business model concept which can aid in the adaptation of companies towards a PSS. However, as Vezzoli et al. (2012) note, sustainable PSS have not been implemented widely yet. They argue this can be due to the environment that PSSs are trying to be integrated. It should be noted that all the recent research on PSS has focussed on adapting businesses towards PSS from a profit-gaining, or strategy, perspective. It was with Botsman and Roger‟s (2010) paper, which started linking PSS to the sharing economy, or more specifically collaborative consumption, that people started looking at the possibilities differently. As Vezzoli et al. (2015) states: “the rise of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption is seen as a window of opportunity that can be exploited to favour the acceptance of S.PSS- (sustainable product-service systems) oriented solutions” (p. 4). It could be that this peer-to-peer environment is where PSSs can succeed as a viable business model (Piscicelli et al., 2015).

The other issue of involvement with PSS, the readiness of consumers to accept, has been a less researched topic. For this reason, most articles notes that in further research this topic should be addressed (Beuren et al., 2013; Mont, 2002; Tukker & Tischner, 2006; Vezzoli et al., 2012). Beuren et al. (2013) states that the field of PSS research has a lack of empirical data. To add to that, they note that when designing a PSS, consumer demand should be taken into consideration. They emphasize the need for research on consumer behaviour regarding this topic. Piscicelli et al. (2015) are one of the pioneers on this path. Their aim was to investigate the role of different ways of thinking about how values might contribute to the acceptance and adoption of PSSs. They conclude that individuals‟ values can be partly considered to be responsible for a failure in wider acceptance and adoption of PSSs. However, this relationship can be better understood in regards to a broader consideration of what it means to carry out certain practices and consumer behaviour within society. As such, this research aims to expand on the research of Piscicelli, Cooper and Fisher (2015) on the role of PSSs within collaborative consumption and its influence on consumers by looking at the role of political consumerism in regards to the acceptance of PSSs.

2.3 Political Consumerism

To expand on the role of values for consumer acceptance of PSSs, this research will look at what potential role political consumerism might have in this process. As was mentioned earlier, political consumerism is defined by using market actions as an area for politics and consumer choice as a political tool (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). It should be noted that when speaking of politics in regard to political consumerism, the definition encompasses more than solely political choice in regards to the government and social institutions. Political

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consumerism also has a social, ethical and ecological element (Newman & Bartels, 2011) to it, and more often than not it is used to express a consumer‟s ideology in regard to specific social issues (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). This form of active consumership might aid in the process of encouraging people to be more open in embracing the opportunities that sustainable solutions, such as PSS, might offer (Blattel-Mink, 2014). Political consumerism exists of two dimensions as mentioned by Newman and Bartels (2011); the intentional buying of products over other products (buycotting) and the intentional boycotting of products. As such, market choice is an instrument in which consumers may exert power (Jacobsen & Dulsrud, 2007), which can be done both individually or collectively (Bossy, 2014). This definition, however, only entails a scope of buying products and owning them, but does not include a mention of using a product or service without owning it. For this reason, in this paper I expand on this definition by adding a third dimension; the intentional choice of a different form of consumption, in this case access instead of ownership. Bardhi and Eckhardt (2012) first mentioned this in their take on political consumerism by arguing that consumers might use their choice of consumption as a strategy to show their ideological interests to society, business and government. More specifically in the case of collaborative consumption, they say that engaging in access can be a reflexive strategy, used to signal a more environmentally sustainable or anti-market consumption alternative. Bossy (2014) also reflects on this with his definition of political consumerism, calling it “a social movement in which a network of individual and collective actors criticize and try to differentiate themselves from traditional consumerism by politicizing the act of buying in order to search and promote other types of consumption” (p. 182). Political consumerism as such, can be used as a means to promote social change (Gotlieb, 2015).

The next section will discuss my theoretical framework. Since I am dealing with topics of social change and market innovations I will turn towards the multi-level perspective theory from Geels (2002). I will use the definitions as given in the literature review and give an adapted version of the multi-level perspective framework, specifically modified to this case.

3. Theoretical framework

3.1 The Multi-level Perspective theory

Research into sustainable transitions has seen a growing trend over the past years (Martin, 2016). Coupled with the immense growth of the sharing economy market and its contradicting social impacts, it makes for an interesting topic of research. Since there is common ground amongst actors in this discourse that the sharing economy could transform market economies (Martin, 2016), better understanding of this phenomena is required. Piscicelli et al. (2015) argue that is required to turn to the multi-level perspective theory in order to explain and interpret the possible impact the sharing economy might have.

The multi-level perspective theory is a model made by Geels (2002) which gives insight in how transitions shape and manifest themselves and can be seen in Fig. 1. It involves interplay between processes in three conceptual levels; the landscape developments, socio-technical regimes and niche innovations (Geels, 2005). The macro-level landscape developments refer to the wider environment in which actors operate and regimes evolve. They cannot be directly influenced by actors and do not change at will. They form the broader outline in which processes take place, such as for example the modern day ICT landscape. Landscapes are the normative values, worldviews and dominant paradigms that give context. The meso-level is formed by the socio-technical regimes. They form the systems in which actors and organizations are embedded and in which they operate and interact. Things such as dominant practices, rules and interests are all manifested in socio-technical regimes (Geels, 2005; Tukker & Tischner, 2006). Niches are the locus of radical innovations as they provide in the development of said innovations. Through niches, radical innovations can manifest and

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compete with the existing regimes; which eventually over time might lead to a change in the socio-technical regime. Even though the model can be used to describe any innovation, such as the change from horse-carriages to cars (Geels, 2005); in recent literature, the model has grown to become an indispensible asset of sustainability transition research (Martin, 2016). More often than not it is used to describe the potential of sustainable innovations to have an impact on the current socio-technical regimes.

Figure 1: The multi-level perspective framework by Geels (2005). Marked red is the regime which forms the core in our research.

In this research, I will use the multi-level perspective theory model and adapt it specifically to my case. It will form the core of this paper which will dive into one of the aspects of sustainable transition. The adapted model can be seen in Fig 2. Specifically, I will be taking a look at the aforementioned service systems. As was deducted, product-service systems are an integral part of the sharing economy. Since the sharing economy should be framed as a niche (Martin, 2016), PSSs are put into the model as a niche innovation, which could exert pressure on the existing socio-technical regimes. The landscape of increased ecological consciousness and economic problems favours the ability of niche innovations such as PSSs to change the current paradigms of hyper-consumption (Botsman & Rogers, 2010). The possibility exists that through the introduction of PSSs, consumers have more avenues of exerting pressure on the existing regime. This might create a shift from an industrial economy, focussed on the exchange of products that are consumed, to a functional economy, where products and technology are simply modes of providing function (Stahel, 1989). Expanding on Piscelli et al. (2015) research of how PSSs can influence values of consumers through introducing the influence of political consumerism. Beuren et al. (2013) mentions that PSS have the possibility to re-orient the current standards of consumption and production towards a more sustainable society. I will look at how PSSs can operate as an institute to allow for increased political consumerism, which might lead to a shift in the settled regime.

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Figure 2: Adapted version of the multi-level perspective theory. The effect of product-service systems on political consumerism within the current market and user practices.

3.2 Hypotheses

Following up on the model, I have deducted four hypotheses that will be researched. These hypotheses will be required to give a full scope of the research on sustainable transition. Moreover, they will give insight on a smaller local level on the influence of product-service systems on consumer behaviour.

The first hypothesis is in regards to the meta-level of the model on landscape developments. The model argues that in the current landscape there is a presence of ecological consciousness amongst people, and more specifically consumers. An increased awareness of the negative impacts of overconsumption, as well as the global financial crisis of the 21st century, has led to a shift in consumers‟ mindset (Albinsson & Perera, 2012). This has driven consumer groups to beginning to resist hyper-consumption, adopt anticonsumption practices and explore options for simplifying their lifestyles. Environmental consciousness seems to generally be on a high level (Mainieri et al., 1997) and therefore I hypothesize:

Hypothesis 1: There is no difference regarding environmental consciousness between consumers that use product-service systems and non-users

The second hypothesis is in regards to political consumerism. This is part of the macro-level of the model regarding socio-technical regimes. More specifically, it is part of the market and user practices regime and the interaction with niche innovations. Political consumerism is a user practice which is influenced not only by the person, but also by the avenues that are available for consumers to exert their political consumption behaviour on (Bossy, 2014). Hence, I will look at the influence of one of these avenues in the form of product-service systems. My second hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 2: Consumers that use product-service systems score higher on political consumerism.

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The third hypothesis expands on the second hypothesis by looking if, and how, the consumer behaviour changed. This involves the third part of the multi-level perspective model, namely a change in regime behaviour. When the niche innovation exerts enough pressure, it should be able to change existing regimes and thus change markets and user practices. They have the capacity to bring economic interests aligned with positive social and environmental impacts and as such can become a gateway for political consumerism.

Therefore my third hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 3: Product-service system usage has influenced political consumerism of consumers

The final hypothesis is in regard to the suggested regime change in market and user practices. It is on more of a meta-level, and the goal is to find out whether consumers believe that the existence of PSS can outgrow the niche innovation level and become a norm within the socio-technical regime. The fourth and final hypothesis therefore is:

Hypothesis 4: Product-service systems can outgrow the niche innovation level and become settled within the socio-technical regime

4. Methods

Using a case-control study, the role of PSS on political consumerism was explored. Quantitative data was gathered through a survey and analysed in SPSS. Data collection through surveys was selected as an appropriate tool to measure the effects in the model since the model was derived from an existing framework of Geels (2005) and operationalized with existing measurable variables of ecological consciousness and political consumerism. To gain both an overview of the levels and differences in these variables, the survey was filled by two groups of respondents; Peerby-users and non-users. Non-users can be seen as the regular consumers in the paradigm, whereas Peerby-users are to be seen as the group that has possibly been influenced on their level of political consumerism through using a PSS platform.

To start off, some insight in the chosen PSS platform, Peerby, will be given. This allows us to get a scope of how this PSS fits within the given definitions. Following that, the quantitative data collection and analysis methods that have been used are explained.

4.1 Research context

The research limits its scope to one of many PSS platforms, namely Peerby (www.peerby.com). It is a Netherlands-based online platform through which people can lend and borrow each other‟s objects and resources. Their aim is to specifically induce the swapping of goods and other things such as services and skills are not allowed. Recently, they have updated their platform to now incorporate the payment for hiring goods and resources, called Peerby-Go. As such they fully encompass the definition given by Belk (2013) of a PSS based on sharing within a community through either lending or bartering of goods. Peerby enables users to list their items which they have available in order to receive requests for said items from other users, as well as to respond to requests which are on the website. It is mostly based on trust and interaction is done through a chat-system on the website. Users can also request an insurance to secure their items.

Peerby was launched in late 2011 and still strives to grow even further, not only through the introduction of new services such as Peerby-Go, but also on a global scale. Recent introductions in large cities in the U.S. have seen a positive influence; however, this is still in early stages and so not much can be deducted. Moreover, they are thinking about starting a platform for the exchange of skills and services, called Peerby-Yo. In this case I will focus mainly on the basic Peerby website, which focuses on the free lending and borrowing of goods and resources.

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This paper will present its findings from the quantitative study which was conducted through an online survey. The survey was administered to both registered Peerby-users as well as non-users. Non-users were gathered through personal contact and via Croqqer.com, a platform which enables the requests of services. Peerby-users were also gathered through said platform, but largely found on the website itself. The user sample was gathered by contacting the users and incentivizing them by offering their requested product, or simply requesting for respondents. Due to the nature of Peerby operating amongst your neighbours in close vicinity, a large basis of the sample are citizens of Amsterdam. The responses gathered were N = 60; 30 respondents for both user groups.

The total respondent group had slightly more female respondents (53,33% female, 46,67% male), though when looking at the different groups this originated from the Peerby group (56,67% female, 43,33% male; compared to 50% male, 50% female split in the non-user group). Most respondents were of young age (41,66% aged 18-25); but when comparing groups the Peerby group averaged higher (36,66% aged 35-54) compared to the non-user group (53,33% aged 18-25). Education levels within the respondent group was high amongst both groups (86,66% of total group had a HBO/WO degree).

The survey includes a combination of two measures, one for ecological consciousness (Sanchez & Lafuente, 2010) and one for political consumerism (Stolle et al., 2005). The latter one was slightly modified to address specifically to ecological motivations, as well as adding an element of motivation to buy- or boycott goods products. Both measures can be found in Appendix 1 and 2. Both groups were asked to fill in these measures and were then asked whether or not they have used Peerby. If not, respondents were done with the survey; however, when answered „yes‟ a second part of the survey opened up. Here, respondents were asked to give their frequency of usage (1 = once; 2 = now and then; 3 = regularly; 4 = very often). After that, respondents‟ motivation to use Peerby was inquired and was rated on a likert-scale of 1 (very weak motivation) to 7 (very strong motivation). The final part of the survey asked respondents two questions on how it influenced them and two questions on how they rate the potential influence Peerby could have, rated on a likert-scale of 1 (fully disagree) to 7 (fully agree). A final question asked whether respondents have ever used Peerby for ecological reasons. Data was analysed with the IBM SPSS Statistics v.23 software.

5. Results

First off, the mean scores and standard deviations regarding the ecological consciousness of both the Peerby-users and non-users samples are given in Table 1. These were derived through a descriptives test, which shows the average scores of the respondents on the ecological consciousness survey. As can be seen, the means of both groups are rather close on all dimensions that involve ecological consciousness; affective, cognitive, dispositional and active (see Appendix 1 for more information). Since the affective and dispositional components were negatively worded, these variables were first reverse coded to indicate a high score as positive and as such they fall in line with the other two variables of cognitive and active. In general, the Peerby group scored higher on all aspects of the ecological consciousness survey. The biggest differences can be seen within the cognitive and active dimensions, which indicate that Peerby users are most likely more aware of environmental issues and take more action accordingly. Seeing as they are already users of the Peerby platform, this makes sense.

To see if there are any major differences between the two groups, an independent samples t-test (Table 3) was performed to see if the two sets of data are statistically significantly different in their variances and means. An extra variable was added at the bottom which indicates the total score. This was derived by computing the overall mean scores per

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participant for all eight questions (two per dimension). The null hypothesis that the variability of the two groups is equal (p<0.05) is rejected for affective 1 (p=.041) and cognitive 2 (p=.010), and the null hypothesis that means are equal (p<0.05) is rejected for cognitive 2 (p=.030), active 1 (p=.026) and active 2 (p=.040). This shows that there is a significant difference between the user- and non-user group in regards to how they rate their index of environmental knowledge as well as their activity in aiding in environmental issues. More importantly, the null hypothesis is also rejected for total score (p=.007). As such, there is a significant difference in the total score of ecological consciousness between the Peerby users and non-user group. Therefore the expected result of hypothesis 1 is not confirmed, since there is a difference in how much the Peerby-users are informed on ecological issues as well as in their activity, both regarding recycling and activism and. Moreover, there is a statistical significant difference in the total score of ecological consciousness when comparing the Peerby-user sample to the non-user sample. As such it seems that the environmental consciousness levels are not equal amongst the total sample and therefore it cannot be confirmed that it is a landscape development, since half of the sample scored lower on ecological consciousness. When looking at the theoretical model in Fig. 2 this involved the landscape developments described at the top of the model. It was argued that due to increased environmental issues, the awareness or consciousness would be equal amongst the population. As it seems though, this is not the case. Many people might still not be fully aware of the ecological issues at hand, or perhaps care less about them. For a niche to be effective, the landscape must be suitable. Therefore, due to this result, it could prove difficult for sharing economy niches to establish within the current regimes.

Table 1.

Means and standard deviations of the 8 item ecological consciousness scale

Peerby-users Non-users M SD M SD Affective 1 3.90 1.03 3.83 0.59 Affective 2 4.10 1.00 3.93 0.79 Cognitive 1 2.07 0.52 1.90 0.31 Cognitive 2 3.57 0.94 3.10 0.66 Dispositional 1 3.77 0.82 3.60 0.86 Dispositional 2 3.17 1.02 3.13 0.90 Active 1 3.53 0.78 3.00 1.02 Active 2 1.77 0.73 1.40 0.62

The next part of the analysis was to gain information of the market and user practices regime. Again the means and standard deviations of the scores of both Peerby-users and non-users were given, this time however in regard to the political consumerism survey (Table 2). An example of the survey can be found in Appendix 2. The survey was adjusted to indicate political consumerism as an ecological factor or motivation. On all aspects of the political consumerism measure, Peerby-users have a lower average mean (1 = yes, 2 = no), indicating they participated more in buy- and boycotting, and do so more often, as well as stating that

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this was more often due to ecological motivations. The biggest difference between the groups in ecological motivations when buy-, or boycotting a product was with clothes. Moreover, Peerby users seemed to have participated in a boycott out of ecological reasons more often and in regards to buycotting these ecological motivations seemed to play a more consistent role.

Again an independent samples t-test (Table 4) was performed, to see if there is significant statistical difference between the means given in Table 3. For the political consumerism measure, a total score variable was also added by computing the means for each participant on all seven questions and adding them to one variable. The null hypothesis that variability is not equal (p<0.05) is only rejected for buycott frequency (p=.010) and the null hypothesis that means are not equal (p<0.05) is not rejected for any variable. There was no difference between single variables as well as the total score. Therefore, it can be argued that there is no significant statistical difference for the political consumerism measure between Peerby-users and non-users. For this reason, hypothesis 2 is not confirmed; meaning that users that participate in product-service systems do not score higher on political consumerism. This means that there is no difference between the two groups in their market and user practices in regard to political consumerism as a tool for expressing ecological motivations. Therefore, in the current socio-technical regime, consumer behaviour is not influenced by ecological factors and the use of product-service systems. As such, it is highly possible that users do not use Peerby for ecological or ideological means. Following the logic given in the theoretical model in Fig. 2, this is most likely due to the fact consumers are still part of an industrial economy. Since no effect was found, no transition has taken place yet, and since the landscape has proven to be unsuitable such a change might still be far off. The next step, then, is to see what drives these users of Peerby to use this platform.

Table 2.

Means and standard deviations of the 7 item political consumerism measure

Peerby-users Non-users M SD M SD Buycott participation 1.43 0.50 1.47 0.51 Boycott participation 1.40 0.50 1.53 0.51 Motivation (groceries) 1.13 0.35 1.20 0.41 Motivation (clothing) 1.47 0.51 1.6 0.50 Motivation (goods) 1.5 0.51 1.6 0.50 Buycott frequency 1.60 0.50 1.77 0.43 Boycott frequency 1.87 0.35 1.90 0.31

First I asked how often Peerby-users have used the platform; once (36,7%), now and then (46,7%), often (13,3%) and very often (3,3%). There is a decent amount of users that have only used the platform once, though their indicated reasons (Table 5) vary from saving money and convenience to using it as a reaction to overconsumption. Most of the other respondents return to the platform for more than once however. The next step was to find out what drove these users to access Peerby. Therefore, respondents were asked to state their reasons for why they used the platform and had to rate them on a scale of 1 (very weak reason) to 7 (very strong reason). Since these were open-ended questions, a manual recoding of the variables

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Table 3. Independent samples test: ecological consciousness

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality

of Means F Sig. t df _Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Affective 1 Equal variances assumed _4,362 _,041 _,308 ₅₈ _,759 _,067 _,217 _-,367 _,501

Equal variances not assumed ,308 46,309 ,760 ,067 ,217 -,370 ,503

Affective 2 Equal variances assumed 1,698 ,198 ,720 58 ,474 ,167 ,231 -,296 ,630

Cognitive 1 Equal variances assumed 2,235 ,140 1,512 58 ,136 ,167 ,110 -,054 ,387

Equal variances not assumed 1,512 46,809 ,137 ,167 ,110 -,055 ,388

Cognitive 2 Equal variances assumed 7,120 ,010 2,231 58 ,030 ,467 ,209 ,048 ,885

Equal variances not assumed 2,231 52,218 ,030 ,467 ,209 ,047 ,886

Dispositional 1 Equal variances assumed ,152 ,698 ,772 58 ,443 ,167 ,216 -,266 ,599

Dispositional 2 Equal variances assumed ,424 ,518 ,134 58 ,894 ,033 ,248 -,464 ,530

Active 1 Equal variances assumed ,545 ,463 2,283 58 ,026 ,533 ,234 ,066 1,001

Equal variances not assumed 2,283 54,220 ,026 ,533 ,234 ,065 1,002

Active 2 Equal variances assumed ,825 ,367 2,098 58 ,040 ,367 ,175 ,017 ,716

Equal variances not assumed 2,098 56,608 ,040 ,367 ,175 ,017 ,717

Total score Equal variances assumed ,224 ,638 2,823 58 ,007 ,24583 ,08707 ,07153 ,42013

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Table 4. Independent samples test: political consumerism

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality

of Means F Sig. t df _Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Buycott Participation

Equal variances assumed _0,236 _,629 _-,255 ₅₈ _,799 _-,033 _,131 _-,295 _,228

Equal variances not assumed -,255 57,997 ,799 -,033 ,131 -,295 ,228

Boycott participation

Equal variances assumed 0,856 ,359 -1,027 58 ,309 -,133 ,130 -,393 ,127

Equal variances not assumed -1,027 57,981 ,309 -,133 ,130 -,393 ,127

Motivation (groceries)

Equal variances assumed 1,914 ,172 -,684 58 ,497 -,067 ,097 -,262 ,128

Motivation (clothing)

Motivation (goods)

Equal variances assumed 1,208 ,276 -,769 58 ,445 -,100 ,130 -,360 ,160

Buycott Frequency

Boycott Frequency

Equal variances assumed ,633 ,430 -0,396 58 ,694 -,033 ,084 -,202 0,135

Equal variances not assumed -0,396 57,117 ,694 -,033 ,084 -,202 0,135

Total score Equal variances assumed 1,969 ,166 -1,241 58 ,220 -,09524 ,07674 -,24886 ,05838

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was performed. For example, when respondents answered in various forms that they needed a product for single use it was recoded as convenience. This resulted in 14 synonymous concepts, which can be seen in Table 5. These recoded reasons were numbered and then all the scores given by participants on how strong they rate these reasons were added to 14 single variables. In Table 5, the amount of times (N) these reasons were mentioned and their average score as rated by the participants is given, making for a clear overview of what the major reasons for Peerby-users are to use the platform. Listed from top to bottom are the reasons listed by frequency of mention by the respondents. The most recorded response to why Peerby-users turned to Peerby was to save money, indicating most people do not want to buy a product for single usage but prefer to borrow this from a neighbour, effectively saving costs. This is followed up by ethics, which involve things such as being able to help out a neighbour. Convenience and community participation are also mentioned often, the first which relates closely to saving money but instead it revolves around a physical need of the product instead of saving money to buy said product. The latter is closely related to the altruistic ethics aspect, but differs in the sense that it also entails the feeling of creating a community instead of simply the need to help people out. Interesting to note is that the highest rated reasons are all related to some form of ecological reasoning, with efficient resource use (M = 6.67) being the highest rated one and quickly followed by using Peerby as a reaction to overconsumption (M = 6.60). Supporting the sharing economy through use of Peerby also scores relatively high (M = 5.83). As such it can be deducted that even though Peerby mostly functions for users to save money and out of convenience reasons such as not having to go somewhere to buy a product, it also serves an important social and ecological role to some people. Respondents also indicated that they enjoyed using the platform (Fun; M = 6.00).

Table 5.

Reasons for usage given by Peerby-users, listed from top to bottom

N M SD

Save money 15 5.67 1.047

Ethics 8 5.75 1.581

Convenience 8 5.38 0.916

Community participation 8 5.38 1.408

Support sharing economy 6 5.83 1.169

Social bonding 6 5.17 0.408

Reaction to overconsumption 5 6.60 0.548

Requirement 5 6.20 0.837

Fun 4 6.00 0.816

Efficient resource use 3 6.67 0.577

Environmental sustainability 3 5.00 1.000

Support Peerby 2 5 1.414

Earn money 2 4.50 2.121

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The social and community aspect is in line with other literature on this topic which mentions collaborative consumption as a driver for such developments (Albinsson & Perera, 2012). The fact that respondents seemed more driven by financial and social reasons adds to the theory that the landscape is not an ecological driven one, but an economic driven one; most likely as a remnant of the economic crisis of 2008. As such, the mindset of users is still one oriented towards individual economical and personal benefits. For a product-service system niche to be able to change to regime this mindset on where to use such a platform for needs to change. There definitely is potential, seeing as the ratings for ecological reasons such as „reaction to overconsumption‟ were generally higher than other reasons. This is also in line with the effect found earlier that Peerby users have a higher ecological consciousness than regular consumers. It seems, however, that this is not the most dominant driver in what makes them start using product-service systems such as Peerby.

What remains is to see exactly what influence Peerby has had on the users of the platform. Therefore, a final analysis was done on five questions the respondents had to answer, which can be seen in Table 6. The first two questions inferred to the third hypothesis; do product-service systems have an influence on political consumerism. Only one of two questions was significant (p=.000); however, the response was that it has not led to said influence (M=2.93), indicating that people do not agree with the statement that Peerby has led to ecological considerations becoming more of a factor in their consumption. Overall this indicates that the use of product-service systems, in this case Peerby, has not led to a change in consumer behaviour or their perception of the market. As such, the third hypothesis is discarded; as PSS usage has not influenced their political consumerism on an ecological level. When looking at the theoretical model, this applies to the final bottom part; the niche. It seems the niche has not developed far enough to influence the regime. One of the reasons could be the landscape not being favourable, or the niche simply being underdeveloped.

To see whether the niche has the potential to develop and become influential, the final two questions were given. These were aimed to answer the final hypothesis; on the ability of PSSs to outgrow the niche-level and become manifested in the socio-technical regime. Both questions proved to be significant (p=.000) and positively answered (M=5.47 and M=5.53), confirming the final hypothesis. This means that Peerby-users see Peerby as a platform in which consumers can consume in an ecological way, but more importantly, they believe that Peerby can serve as an alternative for the current form of consumption in the industrial economy. Thus, even though the results have shown that Peerby is not yet on the level of niche innovation to truly initiate a transition; respondents do believe that the niche holds the potential to at some point influence the industrial economy regime. As such, perhaps when the landscape is more adequate and the niche becomes more developed, said change could take place in the future.

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One sample t-test regarding Peerby's influence

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Peerby has led to ecological

considerations becoming more of a

role in my consumer behavior 30 2,93 1,437 ,262 -4,066 29 ,000 -1,067 -1,60 -0,53

Peerby has changed my perception of the market and how people

consume, or could consume 30 4,03 1,497 ,273 0,122 29 ,904 ,033 -0,53 0,59

Peerby can serve as a platform for consumers to consume in an

ecological responsible manner 30 5,47 1,074 ,196 7,478 29 ,000 1,467 1,07 1,87

Peerby can serve as an alternative to the current form of consumption (service economy instead of industrial economy)

30 5,53 1,479 ,270 5,677 29 ,000 1,533 0,98 2,09

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6. Discussion

This quantitative study measured the roles of the use of Peerby on ecological consciousness, political consumerism and other ecological factors amongst 60 respondents. As with other research, a clear effect of a relationship between political consumerism, and the use of product-service systems was not found (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). Some small effects were found, such as a difference in ecological activity and specific environmental knowledge between Peerby-users and non-users. Also, Peerby-users seem to engage in buycotting more often that non-users. However, when looking at the overall score of political consumerism, no difference was found. On the other hand, there was a difference in the score of ecological consciousness between the two groups, indicating that Peerby users are more ecologically aware. In the case of ecological consciousness this was not expected, as I theorized this would be a landscape development and would thus be equal amongst all respondents. It should be noted that the results may be skewed, since part of the ecological consciousness measure was how actively one participates in improving the environment. When comparing users of a PSS platform to regular consumers, the active part will most likely be higher amongst PSS users. When this difference is big enough it might lead to the overall ecological score being significantly different due to one factor. To add to this, the affective part of the score, which infers to the assessment of global environmental conditions, had no difference between the groups. Continuing with political consumerism, the results also went against expectations, as I hypothesized that Peerby users would be generally more ecologically motivated in their consumer behaviour. Finally, when looking at Peerby and the reasons for usage, most of the results were the same as in other literature on motivations for using PSSs; namely, saving money, community and convenience reasons. An interesting result was the generally high scores given for ecological motivations, which does indicate some sense of feeling that respondents think of PSSs as an ecological consumption platform. This was confirmed by the fourth hypothesis

Perhaps the most interesting result came from the final questions specifically directed towards the Peerby-users regarding their input on how PSS have influenced them and how they become an influence in the future. Contrary to what was expected, PSS did not have an influence on the users consumer behaviour. However, users agreed that PSS can serve as a platform for more ecological ways of consumption and may serve as an alternative to current ways of consuming, leading to a more service based economy instead of an industrial economy. Maybe there is a future for niche developments to change the regime within the markets and user practices after all.

This brings me back to the theoretical framework proposed at the beginning of the research. With the knowledge we now have we can try to see how it fits in the proposed model. The landscape development of ecological consciousness seems to be missing, as there was a difference found within the groups in their level of ecological consciousness. Therefore, the landscape does not prove to be in a favourable position regarding sustainable transitions. When looking at the socio-technical regime level, current market and user practices do not seem to have been influenced or changing yet. Questions regarding political consumerism scored low on average, implying that not many consumers are pressured by the landscape developments in their consumer behaviour. The next step was to look at the niche level, where the product-service systems operate. I argued that perhaps this niche level, through the theory of sustainable transitions, would have an influence on this behaviour. However, from the results it appears that this is not the case, though it does seem that the potential is there.

One interesting aspect that was found is the way users view the possible influence Peerby, or product-service systems in that sense, could have. The most interesting result is that users agree that Peerby could serve as an alternative to modern day consumption. They feel like it offers an avenue towards consumption based on services instead of products. As such, when

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looking at the sustainable transitions model, this would imply that the product-service system could have the potential to break the current market and user practices in the socio-technical regime. One might wonder therefore perhaps why people do believe in such a change, but do not advocate for it in their consumer behaviour.

Many of the conclusions above should be taken with a grain of salt, since there are a few limitations to this research. Gathering Peerby-users as respondents for the survey was a very time consuming process, which led to the data set being rather small. This limits the research in both the statistical analysis as well as in generalizing the found conclusions towards the population. Moreover, due to a lot of the respondents being either close relatives or friends and friends of friends, the sample may be skewed and not representational for the entire population. This is perhaps also clear when looking at the average educational level of respondents, which proved to be rather high. In the case of gathering respondents through Peerby, this also comes with its risks, as users who are willing to answer the survey could be fanatics that are very motivated about bringing a message across, whilst the average user stays in the background. This leads to the Peerby group only portraying a small portion of the entire user base, which might have different views or reasoning on why they use the platform.

In regards to the data collection, part of the survey, and the entire coding sequence, was made by one person. Since some of the coding proved to be rather difficult due to long and unclear answers, some subjectivity in rating said codes is unavoidable. Furthermore, the survey was a bit lacking in gathering information on the non-user group. Perhaps inquiring them on their views regarding said platforms could have given extra insights in the difference between users and non-users, and the overall view of consumers on PSS.

Translating the implications of this research to a bigger global level is also less viable, since only one platform, Peerby, was taken into account. Peerby uses postal codes to get users in contact with their neighbours, and as such a much localized sample of respondents has been researched. If the study was done elsewhere, such as a different part of the city, another city entirely or perhaps a rural area, insights might differ. To add to that, this is only one of many platforms that operates in the PSS community. Such focussed researches like this and the one of Zipcar (Botsman & Rogers, 2010) always prove difficult to translate to a wider scale. Since the product-service system niche, or perhaps even the sharing economy niche, is so much bigger than just these separate platforms, these limited researches can only give so much insight in the potential of the niche development. Therefore, I would recommend a future research involving a bigger sample of both respondents but also of PSS platforms, in order to better obtain a better total image of the possible effects of this niche.

7. Conclusion

The success of new sharing economy initiatives, coupled with increasing environmental concerns and searches for new alternatives have led to this discourse becoming more and more important over the last decade. In the light of sustainable transitions, collaborative consumption could prove to be a developing niche with great potential to change the way we think about consuming. Peerby, a product-service system (PSS) platform, is one of these niches that try to dive into new ways of thinking about consumption. Through a quantitative study, I have presented an analysis of the possible influence this PSS could have, by looking at its possible influence on political consumerism and the effects this has on the current market and user practices regime.

Four hypotheses were analysed to research this influence and which were coupled to the sustainable transitions model by Geels (2005). Three of the four hypotheses did not find any supported evidence. The analysis identified that there is no environmentally driven landscape developments taking place right now, since there was no difference between users of PSSs and regular consumers. Moreover, there was also no difference in the way both consumer

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groups participated in political consumerism. Furthermore, consumer behaviour of the PSS consumers has not changed as a result of using said avenues of consumption. Interestingly, PSS consumers did indicate that they believe these platforms can eventually lead to a change in consumer behaviour and change the way we think about consumption in general. Together, these results show that as of now, however, there is little to no effect to be found of PSSs influencing political consumerism and as such the market and user practices. In light of the sustainable transitions model (Geels, 2005) this means that the niche of PSSs is still in its early development stages. Once the niche has grown enough, it can overtake regime practices, but as of now it seems that is something of the future. For a sustainable transition to fully take place, the landscape must also be adapted to allow for a niche to grow. Even though people are becoming more aware of environmental issues and overconsumption (Botsman & Rogers, 2010), it is still not the driving factor in our daily lives. Therefore, as it stands now, PSSs mainly exhibit a more economic, social and community role. For them to grow into a green consumption alternative, consumers‟ mindsets need to change.

In light of the results above, I suggest that the sustainability transitions research community should view the sharing economy, and more specifically PSSs, as still an

underdeveloped niche. Environmental concern is not the main agenda of people participating in collaborative consumption, even though many researchers have argued that it has the potential to provide us with a new means to sustainability (Barnes & Mattsson, 2016). Hence, there is a considerable need for more research on how this can be achieved. Research on how the sharing economy niche can be steered toward a path aligned with a sustainable transition, as well as on what influences the current landscape developments to not be one of

environmental concerns. The danger now is that the sharing economy and its accompanied innovations will remain on the niche level, and that their potential as possible game-changer for the market and consumption in general will be wasted.

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Appendix 1

Indicators used in the CATPCA model from Sanchez & Lafuente (2010) on ecological consciousness:

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Appendix 2

Figure 3: Measurement for political consumerism, taken from Stolle et al. (2005)

This is the measure for political consumerism that was used in this research. Questions were modified to fit ecological reasoning instead of political/ethical reasons. A third ethical consideration was added for goods (such as power drills).

Sharing economy and sustainable transitions : the role of product-service systems and political consumerism