Yield consumption

 

This blog is experimental : we are learning on the go, sharing immediately the findings and the thoughts we come across. Finding its path among the burgeonning environmentaly friendly eco-system is no easy task. Though the objective is the same in the end, there are many different approaches to a more sustainable development, and these differences sometimes even appear contradictory ; especially, the question of the origin of this trend is key to understanding how it can succeed – is it a marketed initiative from firms to match new customers needs, a civilian awareness, or a state driven effort to trigger such awareness ? Understanding where this game-changing desire arouses is necessary to support it efficiently ; in particular, to coordinate efforts that most of the time run on parrallel paths, lacking any cumulative and synergistic effect.

 

Eco-organisms have it all good

Here at Junkago we have our own opinion : one solution has already been found and put into action, and its working scheme shoud serve as pattern to any environmentaly friendly intitiative. This solution is the eco-organism. These organisms are waste collection and recycling organisms, created and owned by producers in an industry, abiding by european laws which define global objectives. This subject has been discussed numerous times here on yieldconsuption, but to make it short, they are concrete realisations  of the enlarged responsability of the producer when it comes to dealing with the waste inherent to their activity. Their fonctionment has the wonderful advantage of implicating all parties in the recycling (and soon, reusing) process, and is initiating a vertous circle where the producer has to deal with the waste it creates, which will logically help him integrate more quicly and more efficiently the eco-design concepts that may lead us towards an economy of functionnality, where the concept of waste does not exist anymore*.

 

An adaptable and agnostic model

That’s how yield consumption emerged, as a way to apply this pattern to all economic activities. Because it is possible. In this way, yield consumption differs from collaborative consumption : no need to upturn the table, to start all over again for companies, since all they sell can be integrated in a yield consumption, cyclic scheme. On the customer side, it is the same thing : no need to join a sharing community and change radicaly what we buy and how we buy it. Yield consumption is about adding the cyclic dimension of reusing and recycling to any selling good. This is how we believe this trend can gain sufficient momentum and concern more than the few citizen that pro-actively decide to adopt collabortive consumption precepts, often sacrifying confort on the altar of sustainability. It is about financially interesting companies to help their customers dispose of their used goods, thus potentially implicating any customer in an environmentaly responsible scheme ; and this maintains the professional relationship one often lacks when turning to fellow individuals in most collaborative consumption models. And this is possible, too.

 

Action !

Putting this into action is a structural component of our conceptions ; it is part of the definition of yield consumption itself. Ou very first venture, L’arrière-boutique, is the very concretisation of our vision. What is about to start as a virtual closet for bought goods whose aim is to demultiply the number of goods you sell second hand, will gradually turn into a tool for e-tailers (and retailers) to earn money everytime a customer sells back second hand. For e-tailers, it is not about improving his image (though it is part of the bundle), it is about making direct, measurable extra revenue.

There are many signs that show us that mentalities are changing, and this shift needs to be accompanied to blossom. Here at Junkago, we are very optimistic on our society’s ability to reinvent itself, matching all the interests of existing parties : civil society,  companies and state.  But putting in the first place the component we now need to take into account more than ever : the environment.

 

*That’s why we are Junkago : to make the word “junk” itself a concept of the past.