Dirk-Jan Treffers
Utrecht University,
Department of Science,
Technology and Society,
Padualaan 14,
3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands

The concept of sustainable service systems receives a lot of attention as being a new road to sustainability. Less energy and less material are necessary to fulfill the needs of the customer. This seems logical since adding a service component to products or complete substitution of the product by a service creates incentives and possibilities to recycle products, use energy efficient machines, make use of advantages of scale, and deliver products on demand.

Since many governments in the Western world are striving towards a sustainable economy, the questions arise: What improvements in material efficiency can be expected when the diffusion process of PSS is in a mature stage and should this diffusion process be stimulated by policy?

At Utrecht University a project was started to answer these questions. A wide range of case studies on sustainable product service system was evaluated on their impact on material flows. Also attention was paid to the drivers behind these innovations. The research focused on sustainable service systems that can be categorized as 'remanufacturing businesses' and 'chemical management systems'. The study shows that much environmental benefits can be achieved by the introduction of PSS systems and identifies corporate strategies that lead to the introduction of PSS systems.

After evaluation of many 3s cases, we confront the achievements of these systems in terms of efficient material use to a categorization of dematerialization measures. Based on this confrontation we draw conclusions about the potential contribution of 3s systems to dematerialization and argue whether 3s systems should gain specific focus in national strategies towards sustainable material use.

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Last updated: 13 November, 2008