Study on Environmental Benefits through Life Cycle Value Co-creation in B2C Sharing Economy

Abstract

In B2C sharing economy, businesses and individual customers temporally trade product-based services through sharing platform. Life cycle management provides a good insight to assess the environmental benefits in such sharing environment. This paper discusses how information is generated during consumption and how information sharing facilitates life cycle value co-creation to enrich environmental benefits eventually. An in-depth case study is conducted to examine Mobike's practices as a bike sharing case in China. It is concluded that customers join with businesses in value co-creation for service sharing in B2C sharing economy. Through well-established platforms, various types of information are co-created during consumption can be shared and serve as valuable input for life cycle management to co-create more values. Ultimately, environmental benefits can be expanded and enriched.