by Pavlopoulou, Yanna, 6th HSWMA/ISWA Conference, Athens, Greece.
Abstract:
Collaborative circular production can flourish if associated with community networks and ecosystems that share designs, produce upcycled goods, or distribute secondary raw materials through real-life makerspaces or online platforms. Collaborative production in urban areas, in conjunction with the maker movement, is a cultural trend valuing citizens’ ability to become prosumers (creators as well as consumers of things). Despite its vast potential, collaborative production is still in its infancy in terms of digital infrastructure and makerspaces availability in cities. In this research paper, the main socio-ethical collaborative tools for stakeholders’ and community engagement are those of mainstream social media/networks, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube channel; as well as social recommender systems. Makerspaces and maker incubators could empower the maker communities to become entrepreneurs for the commercial launch of circular products/services. Circular endeavours may be fueled by makers movement, smart contracts and blockchain technologies. Social recommender systems have recently attracted research interest. Socio-ethical tools can personalise the e-commerce experience for users based on personalised interests. Besides, recommender systems rely on the trust of users; thus, social trust can be built on users’ characteristics in a social network on a real-world dataset. Both the social media and the recommender systems should take into account the legal framework, the business context, and the possible financing opportunities of community engagement. Authors, under their capacity as research team members of Pop Machina Horizon 2020 project, introduced challenges of circular urban regeneration technologies, according to Pop-Machina vision. Besides, the study stressed out the main sustainability activities that may impact the success of the project, framing the paths of outcomes’ dissemination, awareness-raising, and communication activities. This study consists an introductory guide of proposed methodologies for stimulating the creation and for managing the engagement of maker communities and their stakeholders in a circular ecosystem (e.g. makers within their makerspace, urban planners, and local business communities). To conclude, social media and recommender systems can act as fundamental pillars of a proposed online awareness strategy to provide ever-growing volumes of information, upscaling the dissemination and the communication among communities of users, as well as the greatest possible outreach of the circular collaborative production.
Keywords:
collaborative production, social trust, circular economy, dissemination of outcomes, socio-ethical aspects.
Find the respective pdf here.
