Product-Service Systems and Sustainability: Analysing the Environmental Impacts of Rental Clothing

Emma Johnson,Andrius Plepys

doi:10.3390/su13042118

Emma Johnson, Andrius Plepys

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042118

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Abstract

Business models like product-service systems (PSSs) often recognise different sustainability goals and are seen as solutions for the impacts of consumption and fast fashion, but there is a lack of evidence supporting the environmental claims of such business models for clothing. The research aimed to understand if rental clothing business models such as PSSs have the environmental benefits often purported by quantifying the environmental impacts of rental formal dresses in a life-cycle assessment (LCA) in a case study in Stockholm, Sweden. The effects of varying consumer behaviour on the potential impact of a PSS vs. linear business model are explored through three functional units and 14 consumption scenarios. How users decide to engage with clothing PSSs dictates the environmental savings potential that a PSS can have, as shown in how many times consumers wear garments, how they use rental to substitute their purchasing or use needs, as well as how consumers travel to rental store locations.

Highlights

Environmental Impacts of RentalThere is an emerging awareness and increasing global effort to reduce current consumption patterns to address resource depletion, climate change, and other environmental impacts
This study focuses solely on use-oriented product-service systems (PSSs), where a product is still central to the business model offering, but the product stays in ownership with the provider and is made available to several users at different times [46]
Dresses are offered throughout Sweden, the current customers live in the Stockholm area, and most choose to pick-up their dresses rather than order online

Summary

Introduction

The textile and clothing industry, in particular fast fashion, contributes to resource depletion, produces large amounts of wastewater and solid waste, contributes to chemical and pesticide residues, and is known for the exploitation of workers among many other negative impacts [1]. Clothes are being consumed at higher rates than the technical lifespans of garments [3] due to increasing disposable income and the influence of fast fashion in encouraging waste. Values and strategies of the circular economy and sharing economy show up in various BM archetypes categorised as sustainable in academia, and archetypes of BMs that facilitate reuse through the provision of services are often based on the literature on PSSs as shown by Bocken, Short, Rana & Evans (2014) [42].

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