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| Title | Reuse of ICT Devices as Commons: A Property Rights and Governance Model for Collective Access |
| Authors | Mireia Roura, Leandro Navarro, Roc Meseguer, Sergio Ochoa |
| Publication date | November 2025 |
| Abstract |
Understanding the role of property rights in managing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) devices, primarily computers, is fundamental to addressing resource waste and achieving digital inclusion and sustainability goals. Although the acquisition, use, and disposal of ICT devices are predominantly governed by private property, reuse ecosystems demonstrate significant benefits. In such ecosystems, diverse actors collaborate to recover discarded ICT devices, refurbish, maintain, and deliver them at minimal environmental and economic cost. Drawing on the Common-Pool Resources theory, this article proposes a model that employs property rights to govern ICT device reuse, using the bundle of rights as a structured language to organise reuse ecosystems. The model is based on the eReuse initiative, developed by researchers from the Technical University of Catalonia and the non-profit organisation Pangea, in Spain. It captures patterns of collective action, classifies actors by their roles, and maps the property rights underlying the interactions among these roles. The model was formalised to ease its application in Latin American contexts and evaluated in three regional reuse ecosystems to assess its suitability for replication. Results indicate that, although local adaptation is often needed, the eReuse model is considered suitable for informing the design of ad hoc models to manage the property rights of reused ICT devices in culturally aligned reuse ecosystems. |
| Pages | 1-23 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Journal name | ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies |
| Publisher | ACM Press (New York, NY, USA) |
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