Easy Sharing: A Sharing-Economy Pilot Service in Areas of Multiple Deprivation in West Edinburgh

Abstract

This chapter describes Easy Sharing, a pilot service from the Edinburgh Tool Library (ETL). ETL lends from a library of 1000 tools and has made more than 13,000 loans in four years. Over a 20-week period, Easy Sharing provided pick-up and drop-off of reserved ETL items at four community organizations in areas of multiple deprivation in West Edinburgh, combining a digital platform with social engagement and transport logistics. The goal of Easy Sharing was to introduce an alternative economic infrastructure, a Library of Things, that can engender sharing over time. Through ethnography, surveys, and focus groups, we investigate the drivers and barriers to participation in the sharing economy, interrogating the receptiveness and capacity of people facing barriers to using a library of things over retail consumption and other forms of reuse. We report stories of reception by members of these communities. We conclude with the argument that a platform-mediated sharing economy would be not so much an innovation as in fact a restoration of historic social bonding, mitigating the pressures of current deprivation by introducing infrastructure to strengthen community.