Share Peterborough

Unlock­ing the value of under-used city assets
THE CHALLENGE

Peterborough’s eco­nomy, like many in the west­ern world, has a ‘make, use, dis­pose’ approach to resources. If we con­tin­ue to live and work in this way, we will need three plan­ets worth of resources to sus­tain us. Peter­bor­ough is deal­ing with this chal­lenge head on, declar­ing a vis­ion to become the UK’s first cir­cu­lar city by 2050. In sim­ple terms, this means think­ing dif­fer­ently about the way in which resources are used extend­ing their use to gain max­im­um value.

Peterborough’s prac­tic­al guide to edu­cate and encour­age this dif­fer­ent way of think­ing is illus­trated through the 7 R’s; rethink; redesign; repur­pose, reuse and share;  repair; reman­u­fac­ture; recycle and recov­er.

Many Peter­bor­ough busi­nesses oper­ate in silo’s and struggle with lim­ited resources, par­tic­u­larly SMEs. On the oth­er hand a great deal of waste is cre­ated, much of which could be put to use else­where in the city.

How could we bring busi­nesses togeth­er to facil­it­ate the shar­ing of resources, pro­mot­ing long term engage­ment and com­mit­ment to the cir­cu­lar vis­ion?

 

THE SOLUTION

Fengate is a busi­ness com­munity on the out­skirts of Peter­bor­ough, pop­u­lated by an eclectic mix of busi­nesses from man­u­fac­tur­ing, retail and ser­vices, ran­ging in size from micro start ups to large cor­por­a­tions. When asked about bar­ri­ers to Peterborough’s vis­ion of becom­ing more eco­nom­ic­ally viable, socially stronger and envir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able, the key mes­sage emer­ging was lack of resource, access to skills, know­ledge, facil­it­ies and mater­i­als.

By talk­ing to Fengate busi­nesses, it became clear that there were a num­ber of missed oppor­tun­it­ies to solve some of these issues by co-oper­at­ing with neigh­bours and shar­ing products, skills and ser­vices. What was needed was a mech­an­ism to bring those com­pan­ies togeth­er.

The key to the solu­tion lay in the phe­nomen­on of the shar­ing eco­nomy where peer-to-peer online plat­forms such as Airb­nb, Bor­rowMyDoggy and Just­Park demon­strate the value of unlock­e­ing assets in the con­sumer mar­ket.

Share Peter­bor­ough is a B2B plat­form designed to enable organ­isa­tions in the city to share and exchange under­u­til­ised or unwanted resources and assets such as products and things, skills, know­ledge, spaces and places. Busi­nesses sign up and are able to ‘trade’ unwanted resources and ask for the very same things when needed. Mem­ber­ship is free to Peter­bor­ough busi­nesses. Sign up today at www.sharepeterborough.com to sup­port Peterborough’s cir­cu­lar vis­ion.

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