Sharing Is Good: How to Save Money, Time and Resources Through Collaborative Consumption (2 page)

—Cecile Andrews, author,
Living Room Revolution: A Handbook

for Conversation, Community, and the Common Good

Sharing is Good
is a perfect primer to the evolving sharing economy

—Andy Ruben, cofounder and CEO, yerdle

Beth Buczynski presents a refreshing perspective to collaborative consumption, making a compelling argument that sharing is a key way to address our concerns about the environment, labor, and the economy.

In the face of a society obsessed with consuming,
Sharing is Good
is a great guide to help all of us start consuming less and sharing more.

—Randy Paynter, founder, Care2.com

I know from personal experience that it’s a challenge to balance the warm fuzzies that come from sharing with the practical, pragmatic benefits of making the conscious decision to share more. This book strikes that balance.

—Alex Hillman, cofounder, Independents Hall Coworking Space

Sharing is what it’s all about. Generous and compassionate people are laying the groundwork for an exciting new economy that will

lead the way to a sustainable future. Beth Buczynski’s handy and

informative guide will inspire you to get on board!

—Laurence Overmire, author,
The One Idea That Saves The World:
A Call to Conscience and A Call to Action

Sharing as an economic model has been explored by intellectuals for a long time. As one example, Manuel Castells wrote about “collective consumption” in the 1970s. But few have actually offered a practical sharing how-to manual for ordinary people, for us, until now. There’s arguably no one better to guide us into the sharing lifestyle than Beth Buczynski, Shareable’s original collaborative consumption blogger.

—Neal Gorenflo, cofounder, Shareable.net

Beth Buczinski has written a comprehensive guide to sharing with

sage advice and great examples. In
Sharing is Good
, she takes the time to really understand and articulate this exploding and game-changing trend that is reshaping our economy.

—Liz Elam, producer, the Global Coworking

Unconference Conference

What’s this sharing economy thing that everyone’s talking about?

Buczynski breaks it down for you – background, how to start, what to watch out for, and even provides a huge list of great resources to get you going. Read this book and ease your worries as you join the revolution.

—Caterina Rindi, sharing evangelist and cofounder,

mo-foods, a collaborative food business

A comprehensive taxonomy of the Sharing Economy,
Sharing is

Good
leaves us in no doubt that the future is sharing.

—Benita Matofska, founder, The People Who Share;

Global Sharing Day; and CompareAndShare.com

Beth Buczynski’s
Sharing is Good
is a perfect guidebook to explore sharing tools, services, communities, life and work styles. Save

money. Stress less. Live richer.

—Lisa Gansky, entrepreneur and best-selling author,

The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing

Copyright © 2013 by Beth Buczynski.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

© iStock: Marbles – AntiMartina, Floortje; Circles – SpiffyJ

Printed in Canada. First printing August 2013.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-86571-746-6

eISBN: 978-1-55092-544-9

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of
Sharing is Good
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

New Society Publishers’ mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. The interior pages of our bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council®-

registered acid-free paper that is
100% post-consumer recycled
(100% old growth forest-free), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC

inks, with covers produced using FSC®-registered stock. New Society also works to reduce its carbon footprint, and purchases carbon offsets based on an annual audit to ensure a carbon neutral footprint. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at:
www.newsociety.com
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Buczynski, Beth, author

Sharing is good : how to save money, time and resources

through collaborative consumption / Beth Buczynski.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-86571-746-6 (pbk.)

1. Cooperation. 2. Sharing--Economic aspects. I. Title.

HD2963.B82 2013 334 C2013-903162-6

Contents

Foreword
........................................................................................ vii
Dedication
........................................................................................ x
Chapter 1: History of Sharing
................................................1

Cooperation = Evolution ........................................................... 2

Bartering, Trading, and Swapping Throughout

Early Civilizations ..................................................................4

Alternative Currencies................................................................ 7

Where Are We Now? ...............................................................14

The New Sharing Economy ....................................................16

Chapter 2: Why We Don’t Share
...........................................21

Time ...........................................................................................22

Safety ..........................................................................................24

Money ........................................................................................25

People .........................................................................................26

Trust ...........................................................................................28

Chapter 3: Why Share Now?
...................................................31

There Are More of Us Than Ever Before ...............................31

v

vi

Sharing is Good

The Problem with the “Green Economy” ..............................36

Sharing Bolsters the Local Economy ......................................39

Sharing Protects the Environment .........................................47

Sharing Saves You Money ........................................................50

So, Why Share Now? ..............................................................53

Chapter 4: How to Share
.........................................................55

Styles of Sharing .......................................................................56

Attributes of a Successful Sharer ............................................64

Chapter 5: What Can Go Wrong
...........................................71

Potential Problems with Sharing ............................................72

How to Avoid a Negative Sharing Experience ......................77

Chapter 6: What to Share
.......................................................81

Goods .........................................................................................83

Skills/Time ..............................................................................105

Housing/Lodging ...................................................................112

Transportation ........................................................................129

Food ..........................................................................................149

Space .........................................................................................155

Money ......................................................................................159

B2B Sharing Resources ..........................................................163

General Resources for Sharing
.........................................165

Acknowledgments
....................................................................169

Notes
...............................................................................................171

Index
................................................................................................173

About the Author
....................................................................180

About the Illustrator
............................................................181

Foreword

The future is a foreign country, we’ll do things differently

there — we’ll have to.

There’s no doubt that our future will be shared; with an increasing population on a planet of finite resources, there’s simply no alternative. The Sharing Economy is, simply put, a sustainable economy

built around the sharing of both human and physical resources. How and how long it takes us to build a Sharing Economy, to convince the mainstream that unless we share we have no future, or for sharing to become ubiquitous, is anyone’s guess. What’s clear is that by connecting the Sharing Economy, we’ll build it, so connect it we must.

I’ve spent three years working without a salary to build a global Sharing Economy movement — The People Who Share; running

initiatives like Global Sharing Day, now reaching over 70 million people in 192 countries, to take this concept mainstream, to connect the many moving parts in order to build a viable, sustainable, economic system. I’m motivated by the fact that not only do I want to build a better world for my children; I want to make sure they have a future.

In this practical guide to the emerging Sharing Economy, Buczynski vii

viii

Sharing is Good

will take you on a captivating, shareable journey around the world where people are starting to share everything from cars to cabanas, from food to furniture. The rate of growth in the Sharing Economy is extraordinary; the potential for this to become a new sustainable economic model is not just the subject of game-changers dreams, it’s fast becoming a reality.

We know that between 2011 and 2013, 52% of Americans rented,

borrowed or leased the kinds of items people usually own (source: Sunrun); in the UK, 64% of adults now participate in the Sharing

Economy, making or saving £46 bil ion and a further 28% would consider it (Source: The State of the Sharing Economy 2013, The People Who Share). But this isn’t a book of statistics, where the reader merely sits on the sidelines. In
Sharing is Good
, the reader is the story; for people are the creators of a Sharing Economy — it’s a people’s economy.

After all, to share is to be human, and we’ve survived through

sharing. When you consider the financial, social and environmental challenges we face, time is not on our side and finding a solution is critical to our survival. Start to see the world through a sharing lens and you’ll recognize that what’s wrong with the world is simply a shortage of sharing. A sharing shortage is something that we can fix since we all have unlimited sharing potential, making sharing the simple, achievable, solution to our complex global crises.

Aside from the necessity of resource sharing, we can’t ignore the happiness factor, sharing is fun. 80% of us say sharing makes us

happy, 70% of us want to share more, (source: The Great Sharing

Economy 2011, Cooperatives UK) and 83% of us say we’d do it if

it were easy. In
Sharing is Good
, Buczynski recognizes not only is it time to get on with ‘the job’, she offers ‘the job’ to the reader and shows them where to find the tools they need to get ‘the job’ done.

More than that, Buczynski provides a comprehensive overview

of this new economy, bringing together the separate strands that are forming the ecosystem for this new economic model. Buczynski’s

Green Guru credentials come shining though; being able to take an Foreword

ix

aerial view, to not only see the various strands that make up this new economic system: collaborative consumption, cooperatives, DIY

movement, co-housing (her personal favorite), co-creation, social entrepreneurship, greenomics, Cradle to Cradle, Wikinomics, open

source, commoning, ‘collaboratition’… to name a few, but to connect them, is essential to building a robust economic system.

When I launched The People Who Share, I did this because I

recognized that to achieve success, the Sharing Economy needed to be two things; to be connected and to be mainstreamed. Similarly, I founded compareandshare.com the world’s first comparison marketplace of the Sharing Economy because unless we open up the

Sharing Economy and deliver it to the consumer in the same way

that eBay opened up the second-hand goods market, it will remain

niche and sidelined. This is something we can’t afford to let happen.

As the old Chinese proverb says,
“If we don’t change our direction
we’re likely to end up where we’re headed.”

So, fans of the Sharing Economy and the uninitiated, prepare