The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [47]
Waste represents the underutilization of existing resources. In business, there’s a technical term for the efficient employment of physical assets—yield management. Each flight of an airplane, for instance, requires a certain financial outlay, regardless of how many passengers it carries. The pilot, stewards, and maintenance personnel must be paid whether there are 7 passengers or 270. The fuel cost and wear and tear on the airplane are the same. Once the plane takes off with seven passengers, it’s gone, and so too are its costs and profits. Airlines have used various methods to increase the number of passengers on each flight (unfortunately including overbooking). Mesh businesses can maintain superior yield management. The density of consumer information they receive enables them to manage resources (and waste) efficiently, regularly, and well.
In fact, recovering and sharing raw materials and natural resources is a critical part of the Mesh. Sharing steel parts, or the steel itself, is at least as important in the Mesh as sharing cars. Earth, after all, is the ultimate share platform. The waste-is-food moniker applies with added force to the ecosystems of Mesh businesses. Key partners that aren’t necessarily involved in making a visible offer to the customer will instead use the “waste.” Business-to-business enterprises are rapidly emerging that reuse and recycle parts and materials. Many manufacturers, with government encouragement, are starting to upcycle their product at the end of its life, to be deconstructed for parts and materials. RecycleBank, for example, partners with cities by offering credits with participating businesses for recycling goods. The organization reclaims old devices and materials, and makes money from the cities by lowering the bills for putting trash in landfills.
As discussed earlier, in a Mesh ecosystem products are designed to be maintained, high performing, and serviceable. Businesses will find niches for maintaining and servicing products. Bike-sharing companies may offer their own repair and recycling services. Usable parts would be refurbished and reused efficiently to maintain the bike fleet. Others would be broken down to recover constituent materials, such as steel and rubber. Alternatively, businesses that offer those services may grow up around the bike-sharing companies. In either event, the company’s purchases would be guided as much by what happens on the back end of the value chain as on the front end.
The business-to-business cluster that develops inside a Mesh network will have other long-term advantages. Businesses rather than individual consumers will make many of the purchasing decisions. A tool-sharing service will buy a lot of tools. As tool sharing scales up, these companies will be better able to define what different groups of customers want, which in turn will influence their own buying decisions, and ultimately what manufacturers offer. While based on consumer feedback, including data on how the tools are in fact used, tool-sharing companies will have more clout and communication with manufacturers than the individual consumer. And these companies, like all Mesh businesses, will want products that are durable, can be more easily serviced, and have parts that can be recycled.
Beyond businesses and governments, many individuals also understand that global ecosystems are being compromised. They know that the fascination with buying new stuff and then throwing