Property Rights in Servitisation: A Practical Assessment with Reused Computers

The circular economy of computers is about producing fewer, more durable and reusable products while investing in expanding their life span through a functional service economy. Reuse is often mentioned as a sustainable solution to linear consumption’s negative impacts. Shared ownership has potential advantages in life span extension computers over individual ownership. Moreover, it allows understanding how computers are used during their reuse phase to estimate lifecycle impacts and evaluate circular business models. This paper aims to identify specific success factors and barriers for shared property in four empirical cases of reused and servitised computers launched by eReuse, a collaborative computer reuse platform in Barcelona. The scope of the study is the impact of reused computers under different ownership-sharing scenarios and roles involved. Ethnographic action research and quantitative data help us analyse to what extent shared ownership models manage to lengthen the life span of computers and what roles and life extension strategies are beneficial to its optimal functionality. We found that roles as maintainers or activities such as product and software upgrading are essential to ensuring the dynamism and flexibility required to keep computers functional for an extended lifespan under a shared ownership model.