Researchers Explore Rebound Economy of Food Sharing Apps

While technology applications leveraged for food sharing are intended to fight food insecurity, the environmental burdens of product stocks still need to be considered.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University, with support from the Israel Science Foundation, examined what they referred to as the "digital sharing economy" or an economy in which surplus food items are diverted to other sources than landfill.

While this phenomenon is thought to promote a more circular system with adjustments in consumption and material efficiency, the "cost savings and convenience of using digital sharing platforms can ultimately stimulate additional demand for products and services," study authors noted.

These factors could offset the environmental benefits - or cause a rebound effect. With a dataset of 750,000 food items in the United Kingdom that were shared via free food-sharing apps in hand, researchers performed econometric modeling, geo-spatial network analysis and environmentally extended input–output analysis to calculate exactly how much rebound effects affect the intended environmental benefits of food-sharing platforms.

The findings showed rebound effects can offset 59 percent to 94 percent of expected greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction and between 20 percent to 81 percent of expected water depletion benefits. Furthermore, 23 percent to 90 percent of land use benefits can be impacted as platform users re-spent the money saved from food sharing on other goods and services.

"Our results demonstrate that rebound effects could limit the potential to achieve meaningful reductions in environmental burdens through sharing, and highlight the importance of incorporating rebound effects in environmental assessments of the digital sharing economy," researchers said.

Click here to read the study.