Internet of Second Hand Things: Object biographies, consumption pathways and re-valuing goods.

采用更可持续的消费模式对改善个人福祉、最大限度地减少资源消耗和实现环境目标具有积极的效果。然而，改变消费模式是很难实现的，因为我们对物质物品的获取、使用和处置构成了赋予我们生活意义的文化实践的核心部分。我们拟议的研究将探索物联网中的物质对象与用户生成的内容的关联如何对捐赠者、购物者、志愿者/工作人员以及商品和援助的接受者产生积极影响。我们的目标不仅仅是为二手商品网络中的人们提供更多的信息，而是要培养新的文化习俗，以期围绕购物者对商品的评价引发行为变化，从而提高可持续性，并在复杂的消费模式中建立新的经济模式。我们的项目将建立在与乐施会合作进行的先前试点研究的基础上，该研究采用了EPSRC数字经济图腾项目的技术。智能手机和二维码被配置为能够将故事添加到捐赠项目中。然后，购物者可以阅读二手商品上附加的故事和信息。使用“货架生活”应用程序添加增加其社会和商业价值的故事，导致捐赠的物品在预期的产品周期之外继续存在。促进可持续生活是乐施会的核心目标之一，试点项目表明，在二手物品中添加故事可以增加捐赠物品的价值和寿命，并减少捐赠物品的一次性。解决消费水平问题现在已被确定为人口增长带来的主要挑战。英国皇家学会的《人与星球》(2012)报告强调，未来20年全球人口将进一步增加20亿，并将重点从人口数量调整为关键问题。他们都将如何生活？报告的结论是，在发达经济体和新兴经济体，消费已经达到不可持续的水平，必须立即减少。报告声称，人口的增加将‘……需要减少或彻底改变破坏性的物质消耗和排放，并采用可持续技术。这一变化对确保所有人的可持续未来至关重要。尽管货架生活产品因阐明物联网的社会层面的潜力而在国际上得到认可，但它并没有针对二手商品在捐赠者、卖家、购物者、商品接受者和商品销售所产生的援助之间流动的复杂链条进行量身定做。使这些价值链的复杂性显而易见，并制定适当的干预措施，使其中的各方保持联系，这是制定更可持续的消费方法的关键一步。通过更好地了解二手环境并开发暴露其状况的干预措施，我们可以最大限度地提高其可持续有效性，并将其适用于其他商业领域。

Adopting more sustainable patterns of consumption offers positive outcomes for improving personal wellbeing, minimising resource depletion and meeting environmental targets. However, changing consumption patterns is hard to achieve because our acquisition, use and disposal of material objects forms a central part of the cultural practices that give meaning to our lives. Our proposed research will explore how the associating of material objects, across an 'internet of things', with user-generated content can positively influence donors, shoppers, volunteers/staff and recipients of both goods and aid. The aim is not simply to provide people within the network of second hand goods with more information, but rather to foster new cultural practices with a view of instigating behavioural change around shoppers' valuation of goods leading to increased sustainability and new economic models within complex patterns of consumption.Our project will build on a prior pilot study conducted in partnership with Oxfam that adopted technology from the EPSRC Digital Economy TOTeM project. Smart phones and QR codes were configured to enable stories to be added to donated items. Stories and messages attached to secondhand goods could then be read by shoppers. Using the 'Shelflife' App to add stories added to their social and business value, resulting in donated items living on beyond their expected product cycles. Promoting sustainable living is one of Oxfam's core objectives and the pilot demonstrated that adding stories to secondhand items increased the worth, longevity and reduced the disposability of donated items. Tackling the levels of consumption has is now be identified as the primary challenged posed by population growth. The Royal Society report People and the Planet (2012) highlights the increase in global population by a further two billion people over the next 20 years, and refocuses the key question from How many people? to How are they all going to live? The report concludes that in developed and the emerging economies, consumption has reached unsustainable levels and must be immediately reduced. The report claims that the increase in population will, '...entail scaling back or radical transformation of damaging material consumption and emissions and the adoption of sustainable technologies. This change is critical to ensuring a sustainable future for all'.Whilst internationally recognised for articulating the potential for a social dimension to an Internet of Things, the Shelflife product was not tailored to the complex chains of interactions in which second hand goods flow between donors, vendors, shoppers, recipients of the goods and the aid that the sale of the goods generates. Making visible the complexity of these value chains and developing appropriate interventions so that the parties within them retain connection, is a critical step in developing more sustainable methods of consumption. Through better understanding the second hand context and developing interventions that expose its conditions we can maximise its sustainable effectiveness and extend its applicability to other business arenas.