In the face of rising living costs, struggling high streets and the climate and ecological emergencies, Library of Things (LoT) is seeking funding to develop a game-changing new model for zero waste retail with its 'Circular Economy Operating System (CE-OS)'.
Imagine walking into your local shopping centre and renting everything you need -- clothes, baby equipment, tools, sports/entertainment products... Previously the home of wasteful consumerism, retail centres are transformed into circular reuse and repair hubs -- providing affordable, accessible, zero waste services all under one roof.
LoT is an award-winning social enterprise on a mission to make borrowing better than buying for people and planet. LoT makes it easy and affordable to rent useful items, like drills, sewing machines and carpet cleaners from lockers inside local spaces, and connect with neighbours to share practical skills. Active across 10+ London neighbourhoods, LoT's community item rental service has attracted global news coverage and helped spark a grassroots movement of sharing libraries around the world.
Now, major brands and retailers want to license LoT's innovation -- to deliver environmental targets, innovate business models and respond to shifts in consumer demand for affordable, zero-waste living.
With Smart Funding, LoT's experienced in-house developers will build the world's first CE-OS -- creating custom-built technology, an integrated 'circular operating model' and a business licensing offer to enable any retailer to incorporate rental into everyday shopping experiences.
The women-led team has already secured its first major retail customer and a pipeline of 50+ UK/ European businesses interested in licensing the CE-OS following the project.
This is expected to unlock a target market in UK/ Europe worth £60m+ by 2030 -- creating an affordable alternative to buying for 10 million people, sparing 50,000+ tonnes of waste annually, enabling new circular jobs and skills, and revitalising retail around the world.
**About Library of Things**
Co-founded by Emma Shaw, Rebecca Trevalyan and Sophia Wyatt, this women-led social enterprise helps people save money and reduce waste by affordably renting 50 quality DIY & entertainment products like Bosch drills, Stihl strimmers and Brother sewing machines from self-serve product rental kiosks in urban hubs.
How it works:
1. Hear about LoT via friend referral/press/social media/walking by
2. Browse web app/reserve products, pay-per-day
3. Collect/return products from local kiosk
**Vision**
In 2025, LoT has enabled one million urban residents to affordably access products they need to improve their homes, lives and environment. Its innovative product rental service is now active in 5 UK cities beyond London, working with communities, product manufacturers, retailers/landlords and local governments, Together, we have unlocked a new, 'circular' model of consumerism where borrowing is better than buying -- more affordable/convenient for individuals, more rewarding for communities and kinder to the planet.
**Innovation**
As the first and only product rental kiosk operator in the world, LoT can disrupt the retail market from purchase to rental. This project will help LoT compete with wasteful consumerism, but accelerating its journey to scale to more people across core UK cities.
**Business need**
Whilst LoT is operational and growing its sites in London, and despite having 300+ expressions of interest from residents/ businesses/ local governments to scale to other UK cities, LoT's sales funding pipeline beyond London is not secured and its contracting process can be complex.
**Project:The £1 million Contract for Circular Economy Outcomes**
To launch 100 kiosks by 2025, LoT needs to simplify and secure multi-city, multi-site commissioning contracts worth £1 million. LoT will create a Circular Economy Outcomes Contract/toolkit for commissioning organisations to quickly engage, procure, and provide access to sites to host LoT kiosks in their cities. This is expected to be the first contract of its kind dedicated to circular economy innovation/outcomes.
**Objectives/focus**
The toolkit will comprise of three key outputs a one key deliverable:
1. "Proposition" -- an interactive sales process to share/ quantify business case with commissioners
2. "Impact Model" -- shareable, evidenced finance-impact model -- valuing benefits/outcomes with projected pay-back
3. "Contract" -- simple, template agreement with customisable modules, integrated with financial systems
**Impact**
With £50,000 funding and tailored advice/support, LoT will be able to:
* Unlock £1 million pipeline to bring LoT to 5 more cities beyond by 2025
* Create innovation/ wider benefits, catalysing a movement of circular/sharing models across eg. food, transport
In the context of struggling post-lockdown high street businesses and jobs, the climate/ecological emergency and systemic inequalities, Library of Things (LoT) is seeking funding for a project that increases its capability to be a green, inclusive high streets activator.
**About Library of Things**
LoT helps people save money, reduce waste and activate their local high street by:• affordably renting 50 quality products like Bosch drills, Stihl strimmers and Brother sewing machines from kiosks in high street hubs like event spaces or second-hand shops• delivering training programmes for skills like DIY, repair & sewing with local people
**How it works**
1. Hear about LoT from a friend, in the press/social media or just walking by
2. Browse the website to reserve products. Pay-per-day to rent the product-- just 5% of the cost of buying it!
3. Collect and return products from local self-serve kiosk. Find it in a Host Hub on your high street eg. events space, second-hand shop. Be assured that products are regularly cleaned/ maintained by trained professionals
4. \[COMING SOON VIA THIS PROJECT: View your community's impact and join skills training programmes\]
Having developed a replicable model that is now launching and operating in Host Hubs across London, and having received 300+ requests from businesses and communities in other cities, LoT is planning its expansion to high streets across UK cities like Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester etc.
**The project**
To enable this expansion to happen faster, more viably, and more impactfully, LoT wants to build a _Replication Playbook._
This is a set of three pieces of development for LoT's software:
1. Heatmaps to ensure communities that want a LoT can self-identify, and to help LoT's team identify hotspots of community interest and potential Host Hubs in new cities
2. Live Impact Dashboards to clearly communicate to users and Host Hubs the economic, community and environmental impact of LoT in their neighbourhood
3. Digital Skills Training Module for LoT users, in order to • facilitate product rental through increased skills/confidence;• reduce programme delivery costs to LoT, making the skills programme viable at scale;• increase the impact: unlocking greater numbers and diversity of participants, and creating more local jobs.**Why this helps COVID-19 recovery**
Many high street businesses and jobs, struggling even pre-pandemic, are now in tatters. 20,000 shop units that closed in lockdown won't reopen. In the first half of 2020, UK retailers axed [24,000+ jobs][0]; experts warn this is the 'tip of the iceberg'. High streets urgently need innovative services creating jobs/footfall-- plus reskilling programmes for unemployed.
Through this project, LoT will:
• increase revenue/ footfall to high street community hubs by 50% against pre-lockdown levels-- to 7500 extra visits and £6000 revenue/year.
• involve communities in the expansion, impact and skills development of its own service, setting the precedent for other high street services to do the same at this key moment of transition
• COVID-19 has also increased carbon-intensive, wasteful behaviours with Amazonsales surging to $11,000/second and increased single-use packaging/PPE consumption. It's more important than ever that we scale impactful waste prevention.
[0]: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/07/over-24000-jobs-scrapped-due-to-retail-administrations/#:~:text=New%20research%20has%20found%20that,collapse%20of%20some%20major%20businesses.