Towards sustainable consumption practices: community based services for households by Dr. Andrius Plepys1 and Dr. Oksana Mont2 The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics/ Lund University
1
Background
The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University (Sweden) is one of the participants in the on-going international research project on sustainable product service systems sponsored by the Society for Non-Traditional Technology (Japan). In the previous two project phases the IIIEE provided an overview of the tools for evaluation of customer satisfaction (year 1), and developed and evaluated attitudes of sharing systems (year 2). These studies indicate that community based services (CBS) present an interesting opportunity to understand the challenges of sustainable consumption as well as the environmental potential of shifting from product- to service-based system of production and consumption. CBS in this respect, being close to the end-consumer and having a strong role in shaping consumption patterns and in reducing environmental impacts, are an interesting domain to study. The goal of third research phase for IIIEE (year 3) is to collect examples of community-based
services (CBS), investigate their organisational structure and qualitatively evaluate their environmental profile. The first part of the study provides an overview of a range of
community-based services with the main focus being Sweden. The intention is to obtain better understanding about the nature and the level of development of these services in order to provide a background for the second part of the study.
The second part of the study is devoted to a more in-depth analysis of the most developed existing community-based services. The intention is to learn more about the aspects of organisational structure, historical maturity, actor involvement and context factors that led to their development and dissemination. This paper presents a summary of the first part of the study and predominantly focuses on community-based services in Sweden.
2
What are community-based services?
A broad definition of community-based services (also called homeservices) encompasses any service offered to a consumer near home and that can be expected to improve the quality of life of the consumer (Behrendt, Jasch et al., 2003). In the context of this study we talk about ecoefficient (sustainable) CBSs and narrow down the definition. We define sustainable communitybased service as a service with a positive contribution to the environmental, economic and social components of sustainability (Shkaruba, Vasileva et al., 2004). Furthermore, to narrow the scope of services offered near consumers’ home, we focus only on CBSs offered by different forms of community involvement, e.g. services provided by a housing company (with or without the involvement of a third party provider) or service organised by community members themselves with or without any formal organisational structure (Halme & Anttonen, 2004). In Sweden housing companies (HC) play an important role in offering near home services (“bonäratjänster” – a buzz word in Swedish) and many have strategic interest in improving sustainability aspects of their services. Both the companies and the communities share common goal of developing a nice living environment and increase quality of life. The latter can be defined 1
Corresponding author:
[email protected]. Tel: +46-46-222 02 00; Fax: +46-46-222 02 30.
2
Co-author:
[email protected]. Tel: +46-46-222 02 50.
1
as the ultimate final goal of community services and include the three domains of sustainable development. These require integration of architecture, design and infrastructure development issues, which can be addressed with or without much of formal structures and organisational arrangements. Interests of housing companies often span beyond a mere provision of housing (i.e. rental services) and include a multitude of services that not only increase companies’ competitiveness, but also contribute to higher quality of life to its tenants. Many home services in Sweden are socially oriented, e.g. provision of an additional activity for unemployed or retired people, facilitating social integration of immigrants and other minority groups, etc. (Shkaruba, Vasileva et al., 2004) In Sweden CBS are typically provided by housing companies, but other arrangements involving community members or external service providers are also common. In most of the cases the housing sector plays an important role as an intermediary between external (usually commercial) service providers and the consumers (tenants). This is due to the long-term relation and easy access to their customers, established organisational structures, communication channels and feedback mechanisms, existing in the housing sector. Being in the core of the material flows from producers/service providers to consumers and subsequently to the post-consumer stages of product lifecycle, housing companies also have an important (sometimes decisive) role in shaping overall environmental profile of product-service systems.
3
Why community-based services are important?
Increasing competition on the housing market among housing companies is one of the reasons for growing interest in increasing the standards of living where community-based services (CBS) play an important role. Companies are competing for better segments of residents as well as to retain their tenants. Higher level of provided services in residential areas attracts wealthier and more stable residents, which result in longer tenancies and reduced changeover (and thus the need for renovation). Stable household communities also positively contribute to other factors, such as reduced vandalism and lower crime rates. These aspects are within direct economic interests of both housing companies and their clients. Households can be viewed as mini-centres of consumption, where to a large degree lifestyles, habits and consumption cultures are formed (OECD, 2002). Therefore, households have a significant environmental importance as a channel to address consumption related environmental impacts. Community-based service solutions can reduce these impacts through optimal satisfaction of consumer needs by more efficient utilisation of product functions, faster replacement of outdated products and technologies and improved management of negative environmental impacts induced by consumption. Household-oriented service must also be able to adjust to the changing demographic situation in developed countries. This refers to ageing population, increasing share of people with partial employment, decreasing size of households, increased mobility of the work force (e.g. working from home, which induces migration to suburbs and increases transportation needs), growing foreign immigration (e.g. social integration issues), etc. (Halme & Antonnen, 2004) Understanding these trends is important for balancing economic, social and environmental aspects in the housing sector.
4 4.1
Overview of existing community-based and commercial services for households Typology by the nature of providers
Community-based services can be classified by the type of organisation, i.e. nature of service provision and the types of services by their content. Depending on the type of business arrangement, the services can be provided by: 2
-
housing company (HC) itself or through outsourced solutions;
-
as co-operation between HC and a service provider;
-
in co-operation with the residents, or
-
solely by an independent external service provider (Halme & Anttonen, 2004).
This division of services has been adopted in this study. Furthermore, this overview focuses on those types of services that have or can have environmental significance. The environmentally oriented services seek to reduce the levels of material consumption by offering servicised product solutions or more efficient product use scenarios (e.g. product sharing) and/or to close material cycles by organising proper waste management and recycling activities. Socially oriented services include information provisions, education, employment opportunities and social integration. Economically oriented services aim at reducing the costs of living by optimising the use of utility services and increasing service productivity (Shkaruba, Vasileva et al., 2004). A large European project “Benchmarking Sustainable Services for the Housing Sector in the City of Tomorrow” funded by the European Commission Research Directorate-General within the program “The City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage” has conducted an elaborated overview of sustainable home services. 3 The project has defined the following household-oriented service areas4: -
information provision and consulting (e.g. environmental consciousness, social and financial aspects; education and social integration);
-
utility, building and community infrastructure services (e.g. demand-side management and least cost planning services);
-
personal services (e.g. personal care, safety and security services);
-
leisure-oriented services (e.g. health and sports, social and cultural aspects, communication, entertainment, food and catering, etc.);
-
service extension/product-oriented services (e.g. product repairs, leasing or renting; product sharing and pooling, etc.);
-
supply and disposal services (e.g. supply of utilities, such as energy, water and (sometimes) telecomm; waste management and disposal).
The latter group of services includes some of the frequently quoted sustainable services, such as car-sharing and communal laundry centres. Car sharing will be exemplified in more detail below. Furthermore, good examples to study are the so-called eco-villages, i.e. communities with strong environmental orientation. These cases will also be addressed in more detail in this paper. Services can also be divided by the type of the end-result (Hockerts, 1999). Product-oriented services are additional services integrated with a product to increase its functionality (e.g. product extension by adding new functions and/or providing upgrades and maintenance). Use-oriented services are usually services owned by a service provider, who sells end-functions provided by products and not physical products (e.g. simplest examples are renting and leasing). Result-oriented services are somewhat more radical than use-oriented services, as they focus at providing only the ultimate function by any means possible (typical example is virtual answering machine).
3
More information is available at: http://www.sustainable-homeservices.com/. Accessed 2004-10-01.
4
Based on (Behrendt, Jasch et al., 2003) and (Shkaruba, Vasileva et al., 2004).
3
4.1.1 Information provision services Consulting services are interesting due to their potentially strong impact on consumer behaviour and their potential improvement of the environmental profile of communities. The range of services is very broad and includes anything from how to save energy and water, sort household waste, run composting of organic wastes to where to buy green foodstuffs or which restaurants serve ecologically grown food. An example of the latter is GreenMap tool of Ekostaden – an Internet-based information portal providing city guides with the maps of ecologically certified restaurants and food shops. 5 Especially utility and waste management oriented information services are wide spread among many housing companies in Sweden (e.g. MKB, HSB and LKF). These services are also provided by some utility providers, for example companies like Bravida and Alstom offer total utility management services, such as heat, ventilation and air quality, lighting and water supply systems. Ensuring guaranteed performance standards requires active involvement of consumers in terms of information provision, education and communication. These services often offer energy audits and consultancy on optimised heat and water use, building design and material choice. Some third party service providers (e.g. Bravida) are exploring new business possibilities to ensure safe end-of-life management (decommissioning) of their installations, which implies safeguarding extended producer responsibility though long-term insurance contracts.
4.1.1 Least cost planning and demand side management Some communities subscribe to the so-called least cost planning and demand side management services, which in practice means outsourcing utility installation, management and maintenance to professionals. The latter are third party service providers (less frequently housing companies), who sell certain utility performance standard (e.g. room temperature) and take care of infrastructure in a manner that ensures optimal use of that utility. The range of services includes automatic lighting, IT-facilitated building control (e.g. the “smart house” concept) and remote sensing of product performance (e.g. efficiency of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems). Sometimes service companies offer the so-called “performance contracting” services, i.e. sales of a certain level of improvement. For example, Landis & Staefa (one of divisions of Siemens Building Technologies) essentially is a demand side management service providing optimised utility solutions for private homes and commercial buildings. The service providers for example guarantee a 15-20% energy saving utilising service elements such as, heat, water and electricity management systems as well as demand-controlled ventilation.6 Examples of the latter can be found implemented in Swedish residential buildings of HSB Hallsberg, Simrishamns Bostäder AB, SKF Fitnesscentral and other communities.
4.1.2 Personal care and leisure-oriented services Socially-oriented services, such as adjusting buildings and infrastructures to the needs of disabled persons in Sweden, are required by law. However, some communities extend these services to take into consideration the needs of the elderly as well. This, for example, includes home-care services, such as cleaning of apartments, taking care of pets, food delivery and even banking services.7 Examples of these abound and can be found in most of the larger cities. Some housing companies also organise private babysitting and childcare systems, which are not always formalised by any organisational structure (e.g. a pool of young parents take turns in watching after children, so that the other can work). Most of these systems are, however, short-lived and depend on initiatives of dedicated individuals. 5
More information is available at: http://www.ekostaden.com/information/ekostaden_tmpl_01.asp. Accessed 2004-09-28.
6
More information is available at: http://www.landisstaefa.com/ref/e/ref.asp?orderby=c. Accessed 2004-10-01.
7
See, for example: http://www.kooperativutveckling.org/aldrekooperativ/projektet/projektet.html. Accessed 2004-09-28.
4
Some housing companies take responsibility for broader social issues outside their geographical boundaries. MKB in Malmö, for example, has initiated a project to re-involve homeless people, asocial or marginalised people back into community life by offering them a sense of increased responsibility, e.g. giving communal responsibility or even offering a job (MKB, 2004). Shared communal premises are rather widespread phenomena in Sweden even in communities without “environmental orientation”. These include shared parking space and garages, premises for storage, meetings and social events. Many communities in Sweden establish common facilities for social and sport activities (e.g. weekend flea-markets, performances for children, shared fitness facilities, etc.). Larger communities also issue newsletters and have their own Internet sites, where people can interact in virtual space reducing the barrier for personal communication.
4.1.3 Service extension/product-oriented services Service extension is product-oriented services that are provided additionally to the existing traditional products. These include services, such as cleaning and product or building repairs, communal sharing, leasing/renting, product sharing, pooling and other. Building maintenance and repair services are common many communities. Even the owners of private houses often build an association in order to share service costs and save time. Many housing companies offer cleaning services as a standard option in housing agreement. Environmental potential of cleaning services is in possibilities to hire professionals who can perform their tasks more efficiently and using more environmentally friendly cleaning materials (Shkaruba, Vasileva et al., 2004). Examples of product life extension include community-organised small businesses for product repairs. For example, in one of the largest Swedish housing companies MKB Fastighets AB attempts have been made to raise community interest in organising local small-scale businesses (MKB, 2003). This may also include shared premises, such as repair workshops. Three types of the joint use of tools in modern society can be found (Mont & Plepys, 2004). The first one is using rental services for seldom-used tools and machinery, especially by house owners. These, however, seem to represent only a marginal market for rental companies, as private people represent only 5-10% of their customers. Another type is borrowing tools from a social network without any formal organisational structure, which may include family members, friends, or neighbours. The third type is represented by community-based tool sharing/lending services. These are semi-formalised and developed as neighbourhood initiatives or run as not-for-profit organisations being operated by devoted people or by a hired caretaker, who may even perform small services for the member of the system. In some neighbourhoods there are established special workshops for performing various tasks as building furniture, pottery workshops, etc. Often eco-villages and collective houses have systems for joint use of power tools. These initiatives unfortunately embrace only a tiny part of modern society.
4.1.4 Examples of services in eco-villages A vast majority of community-based services mentioned above are present in eco-villages, which are very special type of communities with strong environmental orientation. There are many definitions of eco-villages with diverse interpretation of key characteristics. According to the formulation of the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, an eco-village is a small housing community with a high priority of providing healthy living conditions and a minimal impact on the environment.8 The Global Eco-Village Network defines eco-village as: “a small urban or rural community whose members try to provide a high quality lifestyle without taking more from the
8
Boverket (2003). European Village & Bo01. URL: www.boverket.se/constructingeurope/. Accessed: 2004-10-01.
5
Earth than they give back. Eco-villages strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life.” 9 Strategies shared by many eco-villages include closure of material loops through environmentally adjusted reuse and recycling; efficient use of energy (preferably from renewable local sources), building standards (e.g. positioning, layout and choice of materials) and many other environmental aspects. A number of eco-villages can be found in Sweden, and their activities are relatively well reflected in different media. To describe the most prevailing services offered in these communities we processed information from 18 eco-villages.10 The services are presented below.
Dry toilets and urine separation. The most prevailing environmental services are urine
separation and composting of faeces. Urine separation in the toilets reduces the load on wastewater treatment facilities and permits alternative waste treatment options with low energy consumption (e.g. composting). Faeces consist of bacteria and relatively low concentrations of nutrients. On the other hand, pure urine contains the opposite. Mixing the two fractions activates and stimulates biological processes generating odorous and greenhouse gases, such methane. Dry toilets allow for waterless exploitation of lavatories and do not require water for waste transportation. In addition, dry composting (with some addition of water to maintain biological decomposition) is a relatively fast process, which does require energy. In fact, the total cycle of biological decomposition in dry toilets can be completed within 6-12 months. In many ecovillages faeces and urine are reused as fertilisers. Especially common is the use of urine as nourishment for non-food related plants, such as flowers.
Composting. It also a common practice to compost garden and organic kitchen waste to be
used as fertiliser (sometimes mixed with the compost from dry toilets). A number of communities have dedicated personnel for taking care of composted waste and maintaining energy systems. Some communities practice informal management systems where each household commits a certain amount of time for public services (often not paid). Buildings. The most prominent environmental improvements in eco-villages are related to design of the houses and the choice of building materials. This includes increased insulation, avoiding materials treated with toxic chemicals, using recycled building materials, placing large windows to the south, building energy efficient ventilation systems, using renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biomass) and other. For example, buildings in many Swedish eco-villages consume less than 50kWh/m2/year, which is two times lower than in traditional buildings. Perhaps the most radical example of ecological building design is the Bo01 ecological community in Malmö (Sweden).11 When fully operational the eco-“city” will house 10.000 people and provide 7.000 jobs. The key to creating this community is a fundamental ecological approach to planning, building and construction, ensuring (among other issues) that the district is provided exclusively with energy from renewable sources. The district also integrates green areas to support natural biodiversity and provide pleasant recreational areas for inhabitants. An interesting highlight is green roofs, which are installed on many houses in the district for aesthetic, insulation, biodiversity, humidity and runoff control purposes.
4.1.5 Sharing/pooling A number of products are shared as part of community based services. For example, common premises (e.g. premises for meetings and parties, sport facilities), children playgrounds, hobby 9
More information is available at: http://gen.ecovillage.org/ Accessed: 2004-10-01.
The information is based on reviewing literature on following eco-villages: Alingsås, Augustenborg (Malmö), Björsbyn (Luleå), Bo01 (Malmö), Bålarna (Nordansting), Ekoporten (Norrköping), Hällen (Uppsala), Gebers Orhem (Stockholm), Mlöjnartorp, Palsternackan, Rumpan (Sundsvall), Ruskola (Övertorneå), Rydebacke (Ubbhult), Smeden (Jönköping), Solbyn (Dalby), Torap (Myrstacken), Understenshöjden (Stockholm), Åkest (Skultuna) and Åsens Ekoby (Härnösand).
10
11
More information is available at: http://home.att.net/~amcnet/bo01.html.
6
tools (e.g. gardening equipment, trailers), common laundry rooms, etc. Lately, some communities arrange sharing systems for IT resources, such as Internet access locations. IT increasingly plays an important role in facilitating other services. In the example of Datessa (a Swedish IT consulting company), a virtual meeting place for people participating in car-pooling has been established in order to facilitate convenient and efficient car booking system. The system spans beyond one community and allows general public to register and access car-pooling resources. The types of services identified above are generic and include a wide variety of practical arrangements. Learning from the existing examples requires closer look into service structure and underlying aspects facilitating services’ success. Below the example of car sharing services is used to illustrate this. Example of what is learnt from studies on mobility services In case of common use of cars, several types of service arrangements could be distinguished, although essentially all of them provide the same final function of mobility services. (1) Car sharing – is a generic name for any formal or informal arrangement when several individuals (private persons, households or companies) decide to share one or more vehicles. (2) Car sharing co-operative – is a car-sharing scheme utilising a co-operative framework, i.e. cars are owned or rented for a long time by an association or a similar formal organisation founded on noncommercial grounds, only the members of which can participate in the scheme. (3) Car pool – a popular term for an organisation, within which car sharing takes place. (4) Commercial car pool – car sharing on commercial grounds, i.e. a company offers a car-sharing service to households and/or companies. According to EKO Kompaniet,12 which is one of the largest forums of car-poolers in Sweden, about 70% of the existing car pools today are public, while the rest are for members only. The largest exiting and one of the oldest (12 years on the market) car co-operative is Majorna with about 250 members, with an exceptionally high growth rate for Sweden – about 30% a year (Schillander, 2002). A review of the car-sharing profile indicates that most of the vehicles in Swedish car pools are small-to-medium size cars with traditional internal combustion engines. Some car-pools (still a minority) started experimenting with electrical, ethanol- or biogas-driven vehicles.13 Car sharing organizations in Sweden emerged already in the beginning on the 1980s (e.g. Vivallabil). However, during the last 20 years, their popularity remained low and although the growth rate of car sharing has somewhat accelerated after year 2000, there are only about 50 organizations with ca. 1,500-2,000 members. A vast majority of them (about 40) were cooperatives with a total of 90 cars and 1,000 members (Rydén & Ryborg, 2001). There is a number of positive aspects that facilitate growing popularity of car sharing. For example, research shows that time consumption for running and maintaining a community-based car sharing system is not very large, contrary from what was though to be one of main barriers (Figure 1, A). Time use for administration (and consequently costs) is relatively low, given current small size of co-operative car-pools in Sweden. Around one third of members in the existing car co-operatives do not invest any time at all and about 45% invest less than two hours per month. In addition, the cost per distance driven for a typical average family-sized car in a Swedish car pooling system is around 0,4$/km, which breaks even with an owned car at about 10,000 km driven annually (Figure 1, B). The latter suggests that car sharing should be popular for people driving relatively short distances.
Source: EKO Kompaniet - a Swedish Internet portal of car-pooling and car co-operatives. Accessed: 2004-10-08. URL: http://www.bildelning.nu/ekok/bilpoolsregister.html.
12
13
Ibid.
7
Costs per distance driven
6
40%
Car pool
35%
5
Owned car
30% 4 SEK/km
25% 20% 15%
3
10%
2
5%
1
0%
A)
0
0 10 hours hour hours hours hours hours
B)
0
5000
10000 km/year
15000
20000
Figure 1. A) amount of time invested by the members in car-pooling co-operatives per month; b) costs comparison per distance driven. Source: (Rydén & Ryborg, 2001). However, there are many reasons for the slow growth, such as economic and lack of incentives for not owning a car. For instance, administration costs is one of considerations for not increasing the size of car-pooling co-operatives, as it is perceived that the costs will grow parallel to the number of users and cars. Even is increased size of car pools may not necessarily increase administration costs (if shared by all members equally), it may reduce the sense of ownership and render unpopular. According to Swedish research, many co-operatives are hesitant to grow fearing that more members may mean less sense of belongingness and more administration (Rydén & Ryborg, 2001). There also economic disincentive, such as the relatively low break-even point for shifting from car ownership to car-pooling (Figure 2). An average Swedish driver drives about 15,000 km/year, which is above the 10,000 km/year point for car-pooling.14 In addition, there are simply behavioural barriers, such inconvenience of sharing and perceptions of low prestige of not owning a car. The latter barriers are perhaps the strongest among those mentioned here, but they vary from community to community and are difficult to quantify and generalise for all community-based car-sharing schemes. Annual mobility costs
50000
Owned car
SEK/year
40000
Car-pooling
30000 20000 10000 0 0
5000 10000 km/year
15000
Figure 2. Comparative analysis of mobility costs in Sweden for owned cars and car-pooling. Source: (Schillander, 2002) Besides community-based car-sharing systems, a large number of companies have organised carpooling systems from their employees. Unfortunately, there is no reliable statistics about the scale and the types of these systems. In addition, there are commercial systems provided to the public by different service companies. In Sweden, most of these mobility solutions are offered by gas stations and national and international rental companies. Both company-based and commercial car-sharing/pooling systems are outside the scope of this overview and will not be discussed in this paper. However, for a future study it would be interesting to explore the exiting solutions where commercial companies facilitate the creating of community-based car-sharing co-operatives. For 14
Statistics from Vägverket (Swedish National Road Administration).
8
example, Swedish Statoil has a car sharing service since 1998, which it offers to the public. Normally, 10-12 persons living close to each other sign a contract with Statoil to start a carsharing scheme. In 2002, Statoil had around 15 car pools in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Lund, with a total of 250-300 members. The company may also soon become one of the major actor on the car sharing market in Sweden having invested about 10 million SEK in developing a good booking system with the Swedish telecomm giant Telia (Jakobsson, 2002).
4.2
Focus on laundry services in the second part of the study
Community washing centres are well-known phenomenon in Sweden being practiced since 1920s, and therefore historical data are available, which will provide possibility to track evolution of these services at regulatory and normative levels. In other countries, majority of the laundry is washed in laundromats or by professional washing service companies (Rosén, 1993), (Cronberg, 1987). No community-based washing centres are usually available. In Sweden the establishment of washing services was primarily initiated in a governmental programme as a consequence of equality policies aiming at freeing time for housewives (Rosén, 1993). From the middle of the 20th century a trend towards the so-called self-service economy could be seen (Cronberg & Sangregorio, 1978). Following the chosen course towards integrating women into the work market, the question of assisting the washing activities got regulatory support. A number of studies followed this servicising strategy advocating collective way of doing laundry (SOU 1947:1, 1947). At the beginning of 60-ies, the countryside households started using private washing machines. However, in cities communal washing centres were rapidly spreading and commercial washing facilities became more and more marginalised (Henriksson, 1999). Later, different national authorities provided a number of recommendations on how these centres should be equipped, how they should be designed so that households would be satisfied and similar. The regulation was so overwhelming that it gradually encompassed even standardising and guiding the design of washing centres and choice of equipment. In a few decades, communal washing centres became a standard feature in urban communities and at some point in time was even considered as an issue raising the prestige of the real estate. Today communal laundries are spread all over the country, where typically 50-400 households share one washing facility with one or more machines. Studies have indicated high customer acceptance in terms of the distance to the washing centre (70%), availability of washing time (50%) and quality of equipment (75%). There are however also some drawbacks associated wit washing centres, such as low cleanliness in the premises (60% dissatisfied) and the increased use of electrical drum-driers (Mont & Plepys, 2004). The long historic record and pervasiveness of laundry services make them interesting to study in more details. Furthermore, surprisingly few studies on the environmental implications of these services have been made with the focus of product lifetime, energy consumption and other direct environmental impacts. Exploring these aspects will be the next steps of the current study. A number of possible research questions have been raised already at this stage: •
What is the share of community-based laundry services on the national level and what is the scale of the environmental savings (if any)? E.g.: the use of energy, water and detergents; equipment lifetime; infrastructure impacts, etc.
•
What are possible negative issues associated with the laundry sharing arrangements? E.g. the excessive use of high-speed thermal dryers, inefficient washes (low loading rate of equipment).
•
What are the social aspects of common laundry rooms? Is it a place of socialising or the point of conflict?
9
5
•
What is the future of shared laundries in the light of aging population, smaller households, increasing affluence, changing cultural values, etc.?
•
What are the possible scenarios for improvements? E.g. lessons from the Electrolux experiment in Gottland; possibilities for commercialising; integration with other community services; the role of IT etc.
•
What are economic factors supporting/limiting the use of community laundry schemes? E.g. how are the services taxed in the Swedish system and what are the threshold values for potential tax breaks?
References
Electronic references www.sustainable-homeservices.com – project website of “Sustainable Homeservices” www.ekostaden.com – website of eco-village Ekostaden www.landisstaefa.com – website of Landis Staefa AB www.kooperativutveckling.org – website of the Swedish National Association of Local Cooperative Development Centres www.bildelning.nu – website of EKO Kompaniet, association of the Swedish car-pooling cooperatives home.att.net/~amcnet/bo01.html – project website of “Bo01 City of Tomorrow ” www.boverket.se - website of the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning Literature references Behrendt, S., Jasch, C., Kortman, J., Hrauda, G., Pfitzner, R., & Velte, D. (2003). Eco-service development: reinventing supply and demand in the European Union. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing Ltd. Cronberg, T. (1987). Det teknologiske spillerum i hverdagen. Köpenhamn: Forlaget Nyt fra samfundsvidenskaberne. 160. Cronberg, T., & Sangregorio, I.-L. (1978). Innanför den egna tröskeln. Ny teknik och dess konsekvenser för livsstilen. Boendet som exempel. Stockholm: Sekretariatet för framtidsstudier STUs Konsumenttekniska forskningsgrupp. 64. Halme, M., & Antonnen, M. (2004). Sustainable Homeservices? Win-win Possibilities for Housing Providers and Real Estate Services? Paper presented at the Eres2003 –congress, Helsinki. Halme, M., & Anttonen, M. (2004). Sustainable Homeservice Report for Finland. Helsinki: Helsinki Business School of Economics. 93. Henriksson, G. (1999). Organisationsformer för hushållens tvätt i Stockholm under 1900-talet. Unpublished manuscript, Stockholm. Hockerts, K. (1999). Eco-efficient service innovation: increasing business - ecological efficiency of products and services. In Charter, M. (Ed.), Greener Marketing: a global perspective on greener marketing practice (pp. 95-108). Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing. Jakobsson, U. (2002). Towards more sustainable mobility. Exploring success factors for car sharing in Europe. MSc, The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, Lund. 99. MKB. (2003). Ingen vanlig hyresvärd. Malmö: MKB Fastighets AB. MKB. (2004). MKB och de hemlösa. [Online]. Available: http://www.mkbfastighet.se/Pub_Files/182/V%c3%a4gvalet.pdf. 10
Mont, O., & Plepys, A. (2004). What is Behind Meager Attempts to Sustainable Consumption? Institutional and Product-Service System Perspective. Paper presented at the International workshop "Driving forces of and barriers to sustainable consumption", March 5-6, University of Leeds, UK. OECD. (2002). Towards sustainable household consumption? Trends and policies in OECD countries. Paris. Rosén, U. (1993). Tvätterskan och tvättmaskinen: om tvätt som kvinnoarbete och tvättningens mekanisering. Arbetets historia: Arbetshistoriska seminariet, 6, pp. 157-167. Rydén, C., & Ryborg, J. (2001). Bildelning i praktiken. En kartläggning av organisation och funktion hos svenska bilkooperativ (in Swedish). Carpooling in practice. Mapping of organisation and function in Swedish car co-operatives. Stockholm: Vägverket (Swedish Road Administration). 89. Schillander, P. (2002). Bilpooler - nyckeln till flexibelt resande (in Swedish) Car pools - a key to flexible travel. Stockholm: Vägverket (Swedish National Road Administration). 38. Shkaruba, A., Vasileva, Y., Halasi, V., Saeed-Khan, S., Tsybina, A., & Mantase, F. (2004). Integrating Environmental, Social and Economic Considerations into Homeservices Policies of Dutch Housing Corporations. Amsterdam: EPCEP secretariat, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universteit. 106. SOU 1947:1. (1947). Kollektiv tvätt: betänkande med förslag att underlätta hushållens tvättarbete, SOU 1947:1. Stockholm: 1941 års befolkningsutredning. 284.
11
