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This is #2 in the 5th Anniversary mini-series featuring the Re-Action Collective focuses on sharing and ‘pay to use’.
We hear from the founders of three startups enabling people to have convenient and affordable access to high-quality outdoor gear: Anna Smoothy from Cirkel Supply, Rebecca Heaps from Tentshare and Bruce Leishman from KitUp Adventures.
The title of this episode – serving more people with less stuff – was inspired by Anna Smoothy at Cirkel Supply. I loved their aim, to serve more people with less products. and that aligns with one of my favourite phrases at the moment, about the need for businesses to do better, with much less.
Sharing and ‘pay to use’ systems are one of the 3 key CE strategies that I encourage businesses to focus on. Sharing can be a catch-all term for commercial arrangements that make it easy to use something for a short period, rather than owning it. These systems can help organisations to serve other organisations, to serve individuals, or for people to serve other users.
For decades, we’ve been happy to rent houses, holiday accommodation, cars, skis and bicycles, movies and more – and now people are branching out into other categories. Rental and subscription services are popping up for technology, fashion and accessories, home appliances, furniture and more, avoiding the need to buy things you aren’t sure you’ll want to use over the long term.
Often, these are disruptive startups using online platforms to provide convenient, flexible ways to access high-quality brands at affordable prices.
Sharing is really coming to the forefront, in particular for younger people who want access to the stuff they need and see ownership as a burden, not a benefit.
Global revenue growth for sharing and renting is forecast to grow at 30% each year, and is key to helping us do much more, with much less. In other words, we get more use – or productivity – from underutilised assets – meaning we need fewer of them in the overall system. This is sometimes referred to as ‘decoupling’*.
*The UN defines Absolute Decoupling as “a situation in which resource productivity grows faster than economic activity (GDP) and resource use is absolutely declining.”
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Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
Links we mention in the episode:
Links for our guests:
Cirkel Supply
- Cirkel Supply website: https://www.cirkelsupply.com/
- Cirkel Supply on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cirkelsupply
- Cirkel Supply on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/cirkelsupply/
KitUp Adventures
- KitUp website https://kitupadventures.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitupadventures/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KitUpAdventures
- Bruce Leishman on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-leishman-1b11bb84/
Tentshare
- Email: hello@tentshare.co.uk
- Website: https://www.tentshare.co.uk/
- https://www.instagram.com/tent_share/
- https://www.facebook.com/tentshare.co.uk
- https://twitter.com/Tentshare1
- Alexis Hindle (software guy), Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loopadventures/ Website: https://in-the-loop.co/
- Eamonn Galvin founder of Know Carbon Website: https://knowcarbon.com/
- Tentshare element: https://knowcarbon.com/tentshare
- Camplight website: https://camplight.co.uk/
- Camplight Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camplighttents/
Re-Action Collective
- Re-Action Collective website: https://re-action-collective.org/
Re-Action Collective on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/re_action_collective/ - Re-Action Collective on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/re-action-collective/
Podcast episodes on sharing and purchasing habits
- Episode 101 Circular is better for people, planet and profit! https://www.rethinkglobal.info/101-circular-is-better-for-people-planet-and-profit/
- Episode 124 Share Shed: the world’s first travelling library of things https://www.rethinkglobal.info/124-share-shed-the-worlds-first-travelling-library-of-things/
- Episode 106 Yael Shemer of Tulu – everyday essentials on-demand https://www.rethinkglobal.info/106-yael-shemer-of-tulu-everyday-essentials-on-demand/
- Episode 105 Gene Homicki – getting more from less with MyTurn https://www.rethinkglobal.info/105-gene-homicki-getting-more-from-less-with-myturn/
- Episode 37 – Lieke van Kerkhoven of FLOOW2 Healthcare https://www.rethinkglobal.info/episode-37-lieke-van-kerkoven-of-floow2/
- Episode 28 Chris Diplock – The Thingery https://www.rethinkglobal.info/episode-28-chris-diplock-the-thingery/
- Episode 27 Chris Hellawell – Edinburgh Tool Library https://www.rethinkglobal.info/episode-27-chris-hellawell-edinburgh-tool-library/
- Trojan Electronics research on refurbishment purchasing habits https://www.rethinkglobal.info/117-james-rigg-a-refurbishment-revolution-for-electricals/
Guest bios
Rebecca Heaps of Tentshare
Rebecca Heaps, founder of Tentshare, is on a mission to make camping and the outdoors more affordable and accessible for all. With a passion for community and sharing, she created Tentshare, an online sharing platform. Here, people can share their tents and camping equipment, creating income for campers and providing affordable access to camping gear.
She is also a Director of the Camplight Cooperative and helps to run the family property development business. Camplight rescues tents abandoned at festivals, cleans and repairs them, and rents them back to festival-goers at an affordable price.
Anna Smoothy of Cirkel Supply
Anna is the co-founder of the Swiss circular business, Cirkel Supply Co. As an ex-competitive freeride skier, and ski industry expert, Anna lives and breathes alpine culture. Over the past decade, Anna has worked with top outdoor brands: from leading marketing at Faction Skis, to team management at Mons Royale.
In 2022, while finishing her MBA, Anna focused her final project on circular business – investigating the sustainability of skiwear rental, using Cirkel as a case study. Upon completing the project, Anna joined Cirkel as a co-founder and now spends her days leveraging Cirkel’s convenient and accessible skiwear rental service to help ski tourists buy less, use more, and go explore.
Cirkel Supply specialises in premium skiwear rental. Their wide assortment offers nine top brands, and caters to women, men, and children of all ages. To drive a consumer shift from linear to circular, Cirkel focuses on making rental of high quality and ultimate convenience: customers simply order their favourite outfit online, and Cirkel deliver directly to their hotel or accommodation in the Swiss Alps.
Bruce Leishman of KitUp
Prior to building KitUp, Bruce served as an Officer in the British Army. As a skiing and mountaineering instructor, he was able to take groups of soldiers away each winter and open their eyes to adventure in the mountains. Having experienced firsthand how difficult it can be to travel with all of the equipment you need and how expensive it is to buy, he asked himself what a better solution would be? This was the birth of KitUp – the idea that anyone can rent to or from anyone else, whatever their adventure. He has loved watching this sharing community grow and help each other out when it comes to equipment access.
KitUp is Europe’s only marketplace dedicated to sports equipment. It has never been easier to buy, sell or rent the gear you need, in a sustainable and affordable way. Whether you are looking to sell a mountain bike or rent a surfboard for the weekend, we are here for you! The KitUp community is free to join and we encourage all passionate adventurers to list their gear and help others enjoy the great outdoors.
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Podcast music
Thanks to Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow, otherwise known as the brilliant, inventive and generous folk duo, O’Hooley & Tidow for allowing me to use the instrumentals from the live version of Summat’s Brewin’ as music for the podcast. You can find the whole track (inspired by the Copper Family song “Oh Good Ale”) on their album, also called Summat’s Brewin’. Or, follow them on Twitter.
