ReShare - Resource sharing in residential buildings: Innovative approaches to shared, circular mobility & space solutions for sustainable consumption

Circular economy entails development of systems that go beyond the linear ‘take-make-dispose’ economic paradigm into a closed loop approach of material flows that maintains the value of resources in the economy. Creating circular economy (CE) inspired processes have been debated at different institutional and policy levels.

Although there are initiatives promoted by several cities, many of the proponent cities face common challenges of integrated guiding framework (both political and legal), limited awareness among citizens and technological barriers. Besides, environmental impacts of social consumption and urban planning initiatives have been poorly quantified to date.

Addressing these challenges is crucial for the framing, designing and the ultimate success of CE as an integrated urban planning solution for sustainable consumption and living. Zooming down to the Norwegian context – resource sharing, a growing world-wide phenomenon, has taken root in Norway as well. Shared mobility, such as car- and bike-sharing has been shown to offer access to families and other households who might not afford a private vehicle, and cuts across age, gender and life-stages [3,4]. But a thorough analysis of sharing schemes from a consumption and an integrated areal level perspective is largely lacking.

In this emerging trend of sharing, the integration of Residential Mobility Sharing (RMS) (e.g. bike, car and electric scooters) and different forms of Residential Space Sharing (RSS) (e.g. training rooms, common kitchens, coworking spaces, pop-up libraries), would be beneficial to the residential building community. Though shared mobility and sharing of services and resources has been studied, both consumption impacts of sharing and the spatial/place dimension of sharing remain largely unexplored.

The emerging forms of sharing are place-based since they generate sharing practices and activities in a defined physical space. This is valid for shared mobility as well (e.g. sharing hubs to pick up the car etc.). Thus, the spatial configuration and spatial proximity are key components of sharing and needs to be examined together, which brings residential area (neighbourhood) as an important planning unit for integrated residential shared solutions and revised consumptions.