FIVE WAYS TO SHAPE THE SHARING ECONOMY IN CITIES: REDESIGNING OUR ECONOMIES AND COMMUNITIES IN THE FACE OF PANDEMICS AND CRISES
In this article, Sharing and the City researcher Yuliya Voytenko Palgan together with her colleagues Kes McCormick and Charlotte Leire at Lund University, present the ambitions and design of a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on five ways to shape the sharing economy in cities.
The recent coronavirus pandemic and the backdrop of the unfolding climate crisis present humanity, governments, organisations and individuals with enormous challenges. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted our society and economy in immediate and profound ways while the climate crisis has exposed the current systems of production and consumption as profoundly untenable.
But what role can the sharing economy play in meeting sustainability ambitions? This is a key question in a new MOOC that connects the sharing economy, cities, governance and urban sustainability to provide unique knowledge and insights into sharing cities. Launched in May 2020, the course utilizes a diversity of leading examples of the emerging sharing economy in cities to bring the content to life.
In broad terms, the sharing economy offers innovative solutions for sharing, renting and replacing under-utilized assets, often using digital platforms, visualization technology and ICT that connects individuals and organisations in the sharing economy by informing about supply and demand.
Sharing economy organisations vary in terms of size (from global home sharing platforms to local clothes libraries), market orientation (from for-profit car-sharing companies to non-profit tool pools) and organisational form (from municipal bicycle sharing schemes to umbrella sharing businesses to community-based toy libraries). All these initiatives are transforming production and consumption systems in cities around the globe, in both positive and negative ways.
Sharing cities often refer to when municipalities or community-based organisations are playing a leading role in engaging with sharing economy organisations or enabling citizens to share by including sharing principles in the planning and design of cities and communities. Sharing cities facilitate those sharing economy organisations that deliver public good and urban sustainability, while restricting those that bring risks for urban citizens.
The sharing economy can contribute to social, environmental and economic sustainability, and sharing cities can unlock new opportunities and solve urban challenges by facilitating and applying the sharing economy. But it is imperative that the sharing economy is shaped and designed to advance these goals for urban sustainability and public good. There are a combination of ways to shape the sharing economy in cities, including regulating, self-governing, providing, enabling and collaborating.
Regulating: Municipalities can use regulatory tools including laws, taxes, bans and policies to govern the establishment and operation of sharing economy organisations. In this way, municipalities can both constrain the sharing economy to emerge or spread, or support certain types of sharing economy organisations.
Self-governing: The mechanism of self-governing by municipalities refers to organisational management when municipalities adopt sharing practices within their operations. For example, this can be through procurement practices or when different municipal units engage in sharing activities with each other.
Providing: This mechanism is exercised through the provision or withdrawal of practical, material and infrastructural means. Municipalities can offer financial or infrastructural support to sharing economy organisations. However, they can also choose to intentionally or unintentionally ignore sharing economy organisations and not grant any financial resources or support.
Enabling: Municipalities can enable the sharing economy through persuasion, argument and incentives. Municipalities can facilitate collaboration between sharing economy organisations, provide information about sharing and offer training on the topic. They can also organise competitions and offer voluntary certification schemes to recognise the best sharing practices in their city.
Collaborating: Municipalities can also enter into partnerships with sharing economy organisations and other stakeholders. Often municipalities become a partner for strategic reasons. For example, when municipalities want to directly address urban sustainability challenges through engagement with the sharing community.
The Sharing Cities MOOC is created by Sharing Cities Sweden, which is a national program for the sharing economy in cities in Sweden, funded by Viable Cities. It aims to put Sweden on the map as a country that actively and critically works with sharing cities. It brings together leading thinkers and practitioners from government, business, academia and civil society.
Sharing Cities Sweden is developing world-leading test-beds for the sharing economy in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Umeå, and coordinating a national node to significantly improve national and international cooperation on sharing cities. It is part of Viable Cities, which is a Swedish strategic innovation program for smart and sustainable cities.
Overall, this new MOOC covers a diversity of knowledge and experiences to explore sharing cities in a holistic perspective with examples from Sweden, Europe and around the world. The underlying ambition is to create an online learning community on the sharing economy in cities.
Explore the course - Sharing Cities: Governance and Urban Sustainability
This blogpost was originally published by Viable Cities.
Sharing Cities Sweden is a program for the sharing economy in cities in Sweden. The program is part of the Swedish strategic innovation programme Viable Cities for smart and sustainable cities. The aim is to accelerate the transition to inclusive and climate neutral cities by 2030 with digitalisation and citizen engagement as enablers. Viable Cities is jointly funded by Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas.