What fundamental problem are you addressing?
Repairing is often not worthwhile today — not economically, not emotionally, not socially. While consumer goods are cheap and always available, repairs appear expensive, complicated and unattractive. This distortion is based on several structural issues:
- Cost perception: Repairs seem expensive even though they are economically cheaper than new purchases — but this is not visible in everyday life.
- Missing structures: There is hardly any infrastructure that integrates repair into everyday life in a low-threshold, solidarity and binding manner.
- Precarious work: Repairmen often work under uncertain conditions, with fluctuating orders and little social recognition.
- Invisible sharing: Repair is not understood as part of the sharing economy, although it is exactly that: shared responsibility for things we own or share.
Our hypothesis: Repair becomes a social standard when it is supported in solidarity, structurally anchored and culturally upgraded.
RepairShare is changing familiar ways of thinking about ownership, consumption and responsibility. Our approach combines several social innovations:
1. Solidarity repair sharing
The fund works like microinsurance or a solidarity fund: Anyone who is a member can claim repairs — the costs are borne jointly. Whoever has little repair helps others. A dynamic contribution system (e.g. fair use or tiered models) ensures that the system remains fair even with different usage patterns.
2. Repair as a social practice
Not only things, but also their care and maintenance are collectively understood. RepairShare promotes a new culture: Repair is not a moral exception, but everyday practice — shared, fair, visible.
3. Appreciation and future of crafts
Through fair payment and predictable orders, RepairShare creates new perspectives for the repair trade. This also preserves a cultural heritage: local knowledge, sustainable skills, social infrastructure. The project increases the attractiveness of craft occupations not only as an ecological necessity, but also as socially relevant work.
4. Platform-based network
A digital solution enables members and repair companies to be matched, effects to be tracked (e.g. CO₂ savings, resource conservation) and transparent communication. In the future, a large language model will be able to assess the repairability and estimated costs of objects — this creates trust and lowers entry barriers.
Which habits would you like to change or mainstream through which approach?
RepairShare aims at a radical shift in the use of consumer goods. Instead of “buy — use — throw away,” the focus is on receiving. Repairing is becoming a social standard. The usual linearity is replaced by a shared circularity.
RepairShare also makes sharing attractive for people who could afford anything, because it is not done out of necessity, but out of attitude. At the same time, the project decouples access to repair from income, origin or education. This makes repair part of a sustainable everyday culture that is ecologically sound, socially fair and economically viable.
What would you like to work on during the booster?
As part of the Idea Booster, we specify the basics for RepairShare and prepare the next development step. The plan is to develop a solidarity-based financing model (e.g. fair use, graduation), legal and organizational clarification (e.g. association structure) and qualitative interviews with repair companies, potential users and administrative partners. At the same time, we are developing a communication line that makes repair visible as part of an urban sharing culture, and create a simple digital prototype for member administration and impact measurement.
As a research partner, the CAS Sustainable Management course at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), led by Martin Brasser, accompanies us. For the digital sector, we are supported by the Ting community, which provides its existing platform infrastructure and offers technical and content advice.
The aim is a sustainable, connectable model that prepares for a specific pilot test — anchored locally but thought to be transferable.