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An Investigation into the Development of the UBC Free Store

University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

This report was written to address the problems faced by an innovative concept newly introduced to the UBC community, the UBC Free Store. As a new establishment on campus, the free store receives little to no attention from students and faculty. They have little funding and few volunteers that dedicate their time to keep the store organised and maintain smooth operations. During the initial client meeting, UBC Free Store approached the team with the problems it currently faces. While this largely involves promoting the store and getting more involvement from the UBC community, the problems addressed in this report include the following: • How to promote UBC Free Store? • What are students’ prime material needs? • How can the store expand the locations of its donation bins? • How does UBC Free Store compare to similar stores in other campuses? The scope of this project was constraint to the UBC community. While it was realised that the concept of a free store would also be beneficial to include larger scale communities such as the residents of Vancouver, it was determined that the free store has to first overcome its challenges in UBC before venturing its concepts outside of campus. The methods taken to gather the information presented in this report included conducting a survey and researching the web about free stores on other campuses. Research on articles relating to the economic, environmental and social aspects of circular economy were also found and referenced in the report. Results and important findings from the team’s internal and external research process are also summarised in this report. As requested by the client, recommendations for both future APSC 262 students and the UBC Free Store are included in this report. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Text

UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report; University of British Columbia. APSC 262

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0343176

Applied Science, Faculty of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/