Video: Rachel Botsman on the Business of Collaborative Consumption

10 Feb 2011 – Kyra Choucroun

Full disclosure here: We love Rachel Botsman. For those of you who have not yet seen the light, Rachel is co-author of a fun, informative and influential book – What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption – which describes a powerful cultural and economic force that is literally re-inventing not just what we consume but how we consume it.

Four key factors are driving a major change in how we value products and services: a renewed awareness of the importance of community; the rise of peer-to-peer social networks and real-time technologies that bring people together in completely new ways (think Foursquare and Twitter); ever-growing environmental concerns; and the impact of a global recession.

Rachel characterizes this phenomenon as a shift in the way we think about ‘stuff’, from “what’s mine is mine” to “what’s mine is ours”.

Intrigued? So were we, which is why we didn’t hesitate when Rachel graciously agreed to an impromptu on-camera interview this week. Watch the video for Rachel’s thoughts on the Big Society, Sex & the City and why we should welcome Collaborative Consumption. Apologies for the occasional tremble in the camerawork, which our operator insists was due to pure unadulterated excitement at what Rachel had to say…

Pessimists might question just how ‘real’ Collaborative Consumption is, touting that humans are inherently selfish, self-interested and hold ownership in high regard. But let me tout just a little bit louder: this is happening and it’s happening now. Everywhere you look you can find land (Landshare) and car sharing (Zipcar and Streetcar) schemes, swapping programmes (from books to baby toys to clothes), co-working spaces (The Hub), and community marketplaces that all operate on the powerful idea that humans are wired to trust and collaborate.

We at SustainAbility believe the continued rise of collaborative consumption is not only inevitable but also necessary, as it has the potential to pull us back from the brink of a range of social and ecological crises that many years of hyper-consumption have brought us to. Collaborative consumption will transform established value chains and business models in ways we cannot yet guess, and companies would be well advised not just to recognise this fact, but to embrace it.