We’ve never owned so much, and maybe we don’t need to
- Taylor Cameron
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
In collaboration with Angèle Doray
While consumption may seem like an individual issue on the surface, it is prompted by a much larger imperative of our economic system: to always keep growing. Yet today we can take the initiative to embrace a sharing economy, away from the profit-incentive and with community at its heart.
For a moment, imagine you are French. Emblematic of your love for your national cuisine, you own a raclette machine used for the preparation of seasonal dishes that grace your table no more than a few times a year. While this medley of cheese, potatoes, and charcuterie may seem like a harmless story, it reflects a deeper issue: these machines spend most of their life sitting in cupboards collecting dust. Yet imagine a world where we make the most out of raclette machines. Instead of everyone having an individual one, you can just borrow it from a communal shed or from a neighbor. Don’t let our example of a raclette utopia restrict you; the sharing economy is not limited to melted cheese and charcuterie, but can expand into many areas of our lives. This is what the concept of Degrowth is rooted in.
Today, the social expectation to own our expanding and private wardrobe of clothes, tools, or private transport is second-nature: It is simply the way things are. Yet with a shift towards more ecologically conscious behaviour, new ways of organising consumption within the economy are emerging. The items we own are the product of a chain of energy consumption, derived from the exploitation of natural resources and of human labor that is taking a dramatic toll on our planet. As an illustration, by July 24th last year, we had already overshot the planet’s bio-capacity for 2025. To feasibly continue on this path, we need at least 1.8 Earths. Today, it is more profitable for companies to produce a lot – sometimes even too much – than to plan for reliability, tailored to the number of buyers and aiming for longevity. As a result, those in richer countries are consuming well beyond their basic needs. This can be seen in fast fashion, among other industries. To address this, a re-imagining of our relationship with consumption is needed, and embracing sharing and "usership" could be the way to go.
Economist Jason Hickel describes the concept of Degrowth as a “planned reduction of energy and resource throughput designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being”. It is a movement that places community at its heart. Degrowth theorists argue that our current capitalist system relies on creating artificial scarcity, in which access to goods is privatised and fought for competitively. Instead, a Degrowth economy aims for access to basic goods and services to be expanded, so that you don’t have to compete to live a comfortable and healthy life: a source of “radical abundance”. Once abundance is embraced, people wouldn’t need an incentive to over-produce or over-consume (to constantly grow). In fact, UvA professor Federico Savini described it as “a process of liberation from the obsession of economic productivity and therefore the making of space for creativity, care, health, education, wellbeing”. This is a movement where consumption no longer revolves around ownership, but usership.
What Usership Looks Like Today
We can already see the transition towards a system of usership all around us. Take a public library. You can walk in and sign up to borrow a book free of charge. Anyone can benefit from this centralised structure, helping to make information, education and knowledge as accessible as possible. Furthermore, libraries provide workshops on using technology for seniors, education for children, or serve as a third space for the wider community. Sometimes, you can even go watch a movie or play a video game.
Today, sharing is not embraced as a communal endeavor like a public library, and is instead becoming just another market for private corporations to expand into. This is all for the incentive to turn a greater profit. In some cases, sharing has been appropriated by private companies as a selling point in order to offer more advantageous prices. In the travel industry, companies like Uber and BlaBlaCar have exploited the cost-efficiency of sharing transport. While a “consistent and frequent pickup options along direct routes during morning and evening commute hours” seems to describe your everyday public transport, you would actually be mistaken. Instead this is the new Route Share tool by Uber, successfully reinventing the concept of the bus into a much more inefficient and unsustainable option. On the surface, the benefits seem the same, but they are not distributed equally. These services are not always accessible or environmentally-friendly. The issue for Degrowth thinkers is that these market actors are still propped up by the insatiable necessity to grow. Often, this desire to grow is not a choice for businesses like these, which need to continue generating profits to simply survive in a dog-eat-dog market environment. Yet, this has placed a heavy toll on the health of our planetary systems, as greater production requires greater material expropriation, and on the working and living conditions of the individual and society.
It is, however, paramount that these institutions of sharing be public or community-owned. First of all, relying on Uber to get around is still much less sustainable for our planet than public transport or cycling, which produce much less emissions per capita. Second, companies like Uber do not provide services for the sake of securing their customers’ well-being, and issues of access and addressing the needs of those most vulnerable are not their top priority. Instead, a sharing economy, through placing the commons at its heart, calls for greater investment in more sustainable modes of transport and is driven by addressing the social shortfall and ecological overshoot caused by our current economic system. In a broader sense, it confronts our deeply rooted yet not naturally occurring culture of individualism and seeks to strengthen community and support networks.
Changing Out Patterns
Usership denounces these private initiatives driven by business incentives to grow profit margins, placing social needs and community power at its heart.
The idea of usership can be expanded to many areas of our economy: cars, fashion, and garden tools. With a centralised space, whether publicly or community-owned, many goods can function under a system similar to that of a library. This transition is essential to curb consumerism in a more circular and sustainable way. Yet this change won’t come easy – and the big question is how we get there. We think it starts with you!
In Amsterdam, some examples of usership in action that come to mind are the OBA Maakplaats, where residents can access technology and knowledge that isn’t readily available at home Clothes swaps hosted by student associations have also been organised across the UvA campus, where students can come in and refresh their wardrobe without consuming more than they need. How about the cute book swaps that you can sometimes find dotted around the city, where you swap out an old book for something new? Chances are you also have a group chat for your accommodation that is often a space for mutual support or for sharing goods. Repair Cafes are also all around, where broken items can be given a second life by passionate community members.
Practice What You Preach
Talking is one thing. Practising is another. Change happens gradually as people become increasingly invested and active, shaping a cultural shift, like water carving out a path in stone. Here are a few tips for “scanning for cool initiatives” along with a few local initiatives in the Amsterdam area or the Netherlands for you to look into.
Key words and places to look :
Social media is a great tool for finding local groups and initiatives, whether on Facebook groups or Instagram profiles.
Search for keywords to find accounts,
Look into accounts of groups that you like and see who they are following
Take a walk around your neighborhood while on the lookout for community areas and gardens, posterboards that might have information about local initiatives
Ask around: talk to your neighbors and local friends, ask them if they have seen any cool things surrounding sharing
Also, you don’t have to wait for someone to organize these things; you can do it yourself! Reach out to neighbors and/or friends when you need something. You could even offer to lend your things to people you trust and neighbors, you might find they are more likely to want to help you back or lend you things themselves! Sharing can be very cost-effective for you. I know for myself it has prevented me from buying an air mattress for my visiting friends or a pair of shears for my hair.
You could create a group chat for your building or floor, where people can help each other out. While buying something is a quick solution, think about how gratifying it is to have achieved it for free through interpersonal help.
Giving away items
Thrift stores
Tools and Fixing
Swapping Items
The Dutch Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace:
Join or start an Energy Communities
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