Product-service systems: Panacea or myth?

Life cycle environmental problems have been addressed by a number of strategies. However, the results are mostly lamentable because solutions are searched for within the same paradigms that give rise to the problems. This research questions the vision of linear material growth and searches for ways to sustain economic growth without putting the natural environment under stress. The research explores the concept of product-service systems as a strategy for reducing life cycle environmental impacts. It shows how the concept has evolved, defines a product-service system with sustainability criteria and presents a framework for evaluating and developing product-service sys-tems. The research also explores drivers, barriers and opportunities for companies to shift towards providing use value through product-service systems. The importance of public policy and normative institutions in promoting more sustainable consumption and production patterns is inves-tigated. An environmental and economic evaluation of scenarios of systems of shared use for do-it-yourself tools and garden-care equipment is pre-sented and complemented with an actor analysis. Conceptual and company-level conditions that affect the environmental profile of product-service systems are discussed. It is concluded that the PSS concept has a certain environmental potential dependant not only on how the system is organ-ised, but also on the institutional and socio-cultural context