부산대학교 도서관

Sharing economy business holds the promise of reducing environmental impacts by enabling the collaborative consumption of fewer and more efficient products. However, whether sharing business succeeds in materializing environmental benefits in practice still requires clarification as it largely depends on the induced consumer behavioral change. This study presents a research framework and develops a methodological approach for the analysis and optimization of environmental impacts of product-centric sharing economy business. We apply this method to a concrete bike-sharing service in Japan as a case study, demonstrating that consumer behavior plays a pivotal role in determining net environmental effects. We find that precise empirical data on consumer behavior and choice is needed to infer reliable conclusions.