Integrated Service Models for increased resource-efficiency in the commercial sector (INERIWI)
Our present economic system is based on the transfer of ownership on goods. Required products are purchased, used and afterward resold or disposed for cash. Hereby the ownership and the responsibility for the product is transferred when handing over the product from one to the other. The producer or supplier maximises his sales by selling a maximum of goods.
A mutual striving of policy, science, commerce and society towards dematerialisation would require new economic models for the producers and also for the consumption of goods and services. Such models must allow the producer to gain value added from his products and the customer the satisfaction of his demand independent of sale/purchase of the products. Ideally the idea of product responsibility should be better implemented as now.
The main objective of the project is the analysis of the real function or service of products in resource intensive commercial sectors. Based on that possibilities and models should be worked out how to provide the real function of the product in an appropriate way without selling it. Together with companies, suppliers and users, possible innovative service oriented models will be worked out in workshops. These models are further characterised according to their ecological, economical and social characteristics, to allow an estimate of the improvement in resource intensity
These so identified opportunities will then be compared with the present situation and actual service oriented approaches to show potentials for reduction of environmental burden in selected commercial sectors.
The scope of the investigation is limited to the business-to-business field, as there the framework conditions are more reasonable than in the private sector, where the acceptance of service approaches is dominated by more subjective criteria.
