ABSTRACT
Producers of manufactured materials and objects can take a leading role by renting or leasing their molecules and goods, in combination with efficient return logistic loops. Today’s stocks of objects thus become the resources of the future at yesterday’s commodity prices, increasing societal resilience and a security of future resource supplies.
The Performance Economy is profitable, ecologically and socially viable and leads to innovative operation and maintenance methods. Its success depends on cultural factors – no sharing without caring, user stewardship complements ownership liability, for rental contracts introduce a moral hazard, an invitation for abuse. By selling results instead of objects economic actors retain the ownership of objects and embodied resources, internalise all costs for risk and liability over the full product-life and become the key economic actors.
By including the factor ‘Time’ in economic optimisation, new opportunities open up in the use of objects; knowledge of operation and maintenance of systems functioning – hotels, vehicles, rental textiles – becomes a decisive competitive advantage. Public procurement of buying performance acts as initiator for innovative start-ups applying the principles of a circular industrial economy.
