Overconsumption not only harms the environment but creates debt, clutter and complexity in our lives. While PhD programs in business continue to strive for production efficiency and cost reductions, the abundance of goods available today provides an opportunity to leverage consumption. Collaborative consumption offers an alternative to ownership-based consumption. It fulfills needs and wants through renting and sharing goods rather than selling them. Although collaborative consumption does not present an entirely new concept, it is now rapidly growing and evolving.

Services that let people rent textbooks and movies form an important part of the collaborative consumption trend, according to the Huffington Post. It also comprises the repeated resale of used items, like clothing for children. Many young children can use such clothes before they wear out. Some companies rent items to people, while others facilitate the renting or sharing of items among individuals.

Agence France-Presse recently reported that many new companies have applied business models based upon collaborative consumption. Businesses can generate income by helping people exchange labor or rent out possessions. They earn money through commissions, fees or advertising revenue. Some of these companies have become very successful in a relatively short time.

Institutions and businesses are even saving money by utilizing their own form of collaborative consumption, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Many internet companies share the same computer servers, for example. Such practices even benefit competitors; it’s not uncommon for the same airplane to carry packages for both FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service.

The concept of collaborative consumption offers a variety of benefits.

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