About the project
Lending tools since 2015, Edinburgh Tool Library is the first tool library in the UK. They offer a sharing library of tools for maintenance and repair making it easy for individuals with limited financial resources to access tools, a reduction in environmental impact through maximised use of tools in their lifetimes, prolonged by professional maintenance, and in turn a reduction in the extraction of raw materials to make more tools and diversion of often perfectly functioning tools going to landfill.
Members pay an affordable annual fee, to lend hand / power tools for free or low cost, supported by training. Originally operating from a pop up space in a prominent part of the city, the tool library now has a permanent base from which 2,000 tools – all donations from individuals, organisations and sponsors – are loaned alongside a workspace for members.
As a Resident Entrepreneur at Creative Informatics (a research and development programme enabling creatives to explore how data can be used to drive new products, services and businesses), they are working with My Turn to develop the online circular economy platform used by sharing libraries globally, to generate metrics from their existing tool loan data, including number of tool loans, members’ financial savings and carbon savings. The quantitative data will be presented alongside qualitative data such as members’, volunteers’ and communities’ stories to demonstrate Edinburgh Tool Library’s societal and environmental impact. The Edinburgh Tool Library and My Turn partnership will enable other sharing libraries globally to calculate and demonstrate their impact.