Product-Services for Promoting Resource Efficiency and Sustainability

PROSPERITY is a three-year project that examines how product-service business models can promote resource- efficiency and reduced climatic impacts via novel modes of production, consumption and use. Product-services are seen as a means to revolutionise the way in which consumers satisfy their needs and wants whilst making significant resource efficiency gains across the value chain. Yet there is a lack of knowledge on the ways in which existing and potential users of product-services contribute to business model development, and on how consumer behaviour can support or hinder resource-efficiency gains. Further, whilst recent studies have hypothesised the potential roles business models can play in the transition to a more sustainable society, there is a lack of empirical evidence to show that such developments can reorient sociotechnical systems and transform practices related to the consumption and use of manufactured products. PROSPERITY adopts a multidisciplinary approach that merges perspectives on business models, social practice theory and transition theory to study the development of new business models in in highly polluting manufacturing industries within Sweden and the Netherlands. The project aims to generate knowledge that will push boundaries within the academic community and benefit societal practitioners that seek to bring about enduring change towards a more climate-friendly and efficient use of natural resources.