Wall Street Journal on Product Service Systems
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10.17.05
Hey you money guys out there, read Treehugger daily because much of what you read eventually shows up in the Journal. Today they talk about Product Service Systems, except they don't call it that. Instead it's "One way to keep up: Renting Possessions" They write that "all over the consumer marketplace, people who used to buy things for keeps are renting, flipping or instantly upgrading. They care less about whether things are truly theirs and more about whether they can get the latest and best. People are using eBay to sell things after using them for a weekend. More also are renting, and the Journal mentions Bag, Borrow or Steal, which we covered in April. Not online at ::Wall Street Journal
I’ve heard that an astounding amount of fossil fuels are burned when shipping items back and forth. Anyone have the numbers?
FedEx and UPS et al do everything they can to reduce fuel usage. The former even has begun getting Diesel Hybrid trucks.
These are perfectly good gadgets which would otherwise endup up in landfills if they were lucky; and which would be needlessly reproduced to accomodate other gadget customers, add in fossile fuels for that.