Sharing can be better

The Government should do more to support a genuinely sharing economy. A blog originally published by policy@manchester.

The UK Government has adopted a very narrow commercial perspective on the emergence of the sharing economy. In doing so, it is overlooking the potential environmental and social benefits of sharing. These benefits might grow if digital technologies can be harnessed to support new forms of economic activity based upon sharing and collaboration within communities.

Government attention seems to have been attracted by ‘sharing’ economy platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb, which grew from entrepreneurial start-ups to multi-billion pound global corporations in a few years. It also seems that the Government is ignoring the word ‘sharing’ and focusing almost exclusively on the word ‘economy’.

In particular, government is focussing on the ways sharing economy platforms can enable peer-to-peer commercial activity. For example, this has enabled the emergence of micro-entrepreneurs who rent out rooms in their homes using Airbnb, or spaces on their driveway using JustPark.

So, why is the Government adopting such a narrow commercial focus on the sharing economy? I suggest this says much about the flexibility of the concept of the sharing economy. People see their own values, hopes and fears reflected within it. How else might we have arrived at the point where advocates talk about a sharing economy consisting of platforms as different as Uber (a platform providing for-profit taxi service), and Freecycle (a platform for freely gifting unwanted items)?

Earlier this year the Cabinet Office completed a sharing economy policy review. It is easy to see how the Government’s hopes and established policy objectives have led to a narrow, commercial vision of the sharing economy. So, for example, the sharing economy is viewed as a commercial opportunity within the global economic race.

One minister suggested: “The sharing economy is maturing, moving from early adopters to the mainstream, and we in government are committed to ensuring the UK is the best environment in the world for these entrepreneurs to flourish.”

Government has also viewed the sharing economy as a way of increasing labour market flexibility; eroding labour rights; and promoting the piecemeal forms of work offered on ‘task-sharing’, such as task-sharing’ platforms, such as Taskrabbit.  In a response to a policy document, the government explained:

“Jobcentre staff should be given clear guidance on how to promote … task-sharing platforms. They should actively point job-seekers towards these platforms as a way to build up their experience and earn money.”

My research, recently published in Ecological Economics, has explored visions of a sharing economy that are more firmly connected to the idea of sharing (in its common sense meaning). This research analysed approximately 250 documents where entrepreneurs, innovators, incumbent businesses, policy-makers, media commenters and grassroots activists grappled with two questions. What is the sharing economy? And, what should it become? Some answered these questions is a similar way to the UK Government, but most did not. Two distinct alternative visions of the sharing economy also emerged from the research.

When the sharing economy (sometimes referred to as collaborative consumption) emerged as an idea about five years ago, it was motivated by a deep concern about the wastefulness and environmental impacts of consumer culture. Advocates, in particular Botsman and Rogers, saw the potential for peer-to-peer online platforms to enable people to share access to consumer products (from cars to drills).

They argued that sharing access reduces the demand for consumer products, and hence the demand for materials and energy used in manufacturing these products. For example, peer-to-peer car sharing platforms, such as EasyCarClub, can reduce rates of car ownership and associated material and energy demand; and platforms for sharing consumer products within local communities, such as Streetbank, can help reduce waste and promote interactions between neighbours.
There remains considerable ambition across a loose coalition of sharing economy advocates, activists and entrepreneurs to enable more sustainable forms of consumption. However, this optimism has been tempered by the far-sighted early-movers in the sharing economy, such as Airbnb, which neglected social and environmental objectives in the process of achieving commercial success.
A more radical vision of the sharing economy is also developing, primarily amongst grassroots activists (such as Ouishare and Shareable). The goal of the sharing economy, within this vision, is creating a more sustainable and equitable society.

The central idea that underpins the sharing economy – using digital technologies to enable peer-to-peer economic activity – is extended far beyond the transport (e.g. Uber), accommodation (e.g. Airbnb) and consumer products sectors (e.g. Streetbank and Freecycle). So, the sharing economy becomes an umbrella term for a diverse group of innovations ranging from open source software and hardware, to crowdfunding and microfinance, fablabs providing shared access to 3D printers and collaborative consumption. Although these innovations might initially seem an odd group; they do share a focus on empowering communities and decentralising the economy by refashioning sharing and collaborative practices in a digital age.

Both these alternative visions of the sharing economy have weaknesses and the second might easily be criticised as a digital utopia. In particular, they seem to be grounded in a belief that digital technologies will inevitably empower citizens to address social and environmental challenges.
However, given the challenges we face in creating a more sustainable and equitable economy they certainly warrant further attention from policy-makers. It is time for the Cabinet Office to revisit the sharing economy and adopt a much broader perspective.

Why the sharing economy needs a democratic revolution

The rapidly growing influence of Silicon Valley owners over sharing economy platforms is a troubling development. The growing strength and pervasiveness of these platforms means their owners have significant power to impose their visions of what it means to be a citizen or worker in cities across the globe.

Airbnb, for example, seems free to distort property prices and create a grey, unregulated market for short-term accommodation. Uber meanwhile continues to erode hard won labour rights and turns a blind eye to acts of discrimination committed by its drivers.

One way to combat this could be a sharing economy which is less concerned with making money, and more focused on creating social and environmental value. A proposed solution is to create a more democratic sharing economy. In other words, a sharing economy where the corporate owners are held accountable by the wider public, and users and workers govern platforms together.

But democratising the sharing economy is no mean feat. Research I’ve conducted with colleagues at the Open University and the University of Leeds shows how platforms can work. But they also face the challenge of maintaining their democratic nature and not becoming centralised and more commerically-driven.

For-profit democratic sharing economy platforms are very few and far between (we couldn’t identify any successful examples). So we turned to the non-profit sector and looked at Freegle, a democratically-governed UK offshoot of the Freecycle Network, in our study.
Freegle is a grassroots organisation which runs an online platform, very similar to Freecycle, which helps keep unwanted items out of landfill. The platform enables people to freely and directly give unwanted items such as furniture and electronics to others in their local area. Since being founded in 2009 Freegle has grown rapidly and claims to have approximately 2.3m users across the UK.

The promise

Freegle was established by hundreds of volunteers who left the Freecycle network. The volunteers left after a long running dispute with the central Freecycle management over the erosion of Freecycle’s grassroots ethos. So, first and foremost, Freegle provides some promising evidence that democratic sharing economy platforms, at least in the non-profit sector, can emerge from well-established centralised platforms.


Freegle has also been successful in building a community of hundreds of volunteers across the UK who govern the platform. Major decisions about the future of Freegle are discussed in online forums and then voted upon by volunteers. In particular, the development of a financially sustainable business model, aligned with Freegle’s grassroots values, has been the topic of extensive discussion.

These discussions and democratic processes have been key to Freegle resisting considerable external pressure to become more business-like. So, we can hope that similar democratic processes could help for-profit sharing economy platforms become less business-like and more focused on their environmental and social impact.

Within the community, volunteers provide each other with a great deal of mutual support and share their knowledge. Discussing issues such as how to increase the number of people using the network, and whether or not certain items (such as potentially dangerous chemicals and potentially offensive magazines) should be offered on the platform. So, we can also hope that more democratic sharing platforms would create opportunities for users to learn from each other and develop new social relationships.

The perils

There are some downsides to running a democratic platform, however. The most prominent being that Freegle’s democratic model has made growing the network even more challenging than it might otherwise have been. Lengthy decision-making processes, based on discussion and voting, have meant that opportunities to expand have been missed.

It also means that financial backers geared toward supporting more streamlined for-profit companies have been deterred from investing by the complexity of Freegle’s structure. These issues suggest that efforts to create a more democratic sharing economy may face considerable resistance; in particular from actors with a more commercial focus.

Perhaps more worryingly, in the six years since Freegle was founded there is strong evidence that democratic participation has fallen. This seems tied to the enthusiasm of Freegle volunteers ebbing away. In turn, decision-making has become more centralised.

This is a trend often seen in democratically governed organisations outside the sharing economy, including cooperatives and grassroots associations. It raises an important and challenging question: how can democratic participation in the sharing economy be sustained over time?

Finding a solution to this is extremely important if we want to make sure that these platforms are accountable to the people they promise to serve and not just those governing (or profiting from) them. And if we want to see the sharing economy live up to its promise of helping us transition to a more sustainable and equal economy.

So does the promise of a more democratic sharing economy outweigh the peril? For me it does. Silicon Valley platform owners are likely to disagree, as democratic governance would erode their profit margins. So, it will be left to citizens, social movement organisations and governments to promote greater democracy. As our research into Freegle shows, however, these efforts should be informed by the knowledge that democratic organisations face challenges and external pressures which corporations do not.



This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Initial steps towards a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions

A friend of mine suggested as academics we could be more open about our unsuccessful publications; listing them and making them publicly available. I liked the idea, so below is a short viewpoint article that I unsuccessfully submitted to Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions this Summer. I am still very much interested in developing a research agenda around the sharing economy and sustainability transitions, so just thinking about how to shape and develop the ideas below.

Initial steps towards a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions

1. Introduction

There is rapidly growing interest in the nature and impacts of the sharing economy amongst entrepreneurs, innovators, incumbent businesses, policy-makers, media commenters and academic researchers alike. The sharing economy is often framed by advocates as a disruptive and transformative field of innovation which enables peer-to-peer (P2P) forms of economic activity at an unprecedented scale. Perhaps, the dominant definition of the sharing economy has been offered by Botsman (2013), as an economic model built upon online P2P platforms and “based on sharing, swapping, trading, or renting products and services, enabling access over ownership”. Following this definition, the sharing economy encompasses a diverse field of market-based and grassroots innovations including: P2P platforms for renting or sharing short-term accommodation (e.g. Airbnb and Couchsurfing); P2P car rental and sharing services (e.g. EasyCarClub); P2P ridesharing services (e.g. Uber and Lyft); and, P2P platforms for sharing or gifting resources within local communities (e.g. Peerby, Streetbank and Freecycle). The scale of the sharing economy remains under researched, however by the estimates of PWC (2014) current global revenues are $15bn, potentially growing to $335bn by 2025. Furthermore, the social and environmental impacts of the sharing economy remain a fiercely contested topic. At one extreme Botsman and Rogers (2010) argue that the sharing economy possesses the potential to disrupt the culture of hyper-consumption prevalent in market economies, bringing about a transition to more sustainable consumption practices. Whilst at the other, Morozov (2013) offers a scathing critique claiming that the sharing economy is a form of “neo-liberalism on steroids”. In the next two sections I further explore the contestation of the sharing economy, and then based on the insight developed offer an initial outline of a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions.

2. The contestation of the sharing economy

Three factors driving the contestation of the impacts and scope of the sharing economy can be readily identified. First, the sharing economy is built upon a general purpose technology, the online P2P platform, which enables a diverse range of values and institutional logics to be enacted (Martin and Upham, 2015). For example, using Airbnb (Ravenelle, 2015): citizens can rent out rooms in their homes to strangers and build social relationships in the process – enacting, amongst others, the value of sociability and the logic of community; and, commercial actors can rent out vacant properties solely for profit – enacting, amongst others, the value of economic efficiency and the logic of entrepreneurship. Hence, each platform and the sharing economy as a whole, possesses the potential to create a mix of positive and negative impacts (Selinger, 2008) from the perspective of social and environmental sustainability. Secondly, much of the innovation within the sharing economy is misaligned with the common sense meaning of the term ‘sharing’; as a form of exchange in which economic benefits are not accrued. For example, for-profit P2P platforms that enable citizens to share (i.e. rent) access to resources (such as Airbnb) are easily critiqued for appropriating the term ‘sharing’ to benefit from its positive associations (i.e. sharing-washing). Thirdly, a diverse cast of commercial, social enterprise and grassroots actors are seeking to define the nature and scope of the sharing economy in such a way that favours and furthers particular interests (as elaborated upon below).

The contestation of the sharing economy is manifested in diverse and divergent visions and expectations for the niche (Martin, Under Review), each emphasising and aligning with different values and institutional logics. When the concept of sharing economy emerged it tended to be framed as a new and better form of capitalism with the potential to promote sustainable consumption and create economic, social and environmental value in concert (Botsman and Rogers, 2010); hence aligning with the institutional logic of social enterprise. My recent observations of the Ouishare 2015 Fest^[1] – attended by approximately 1000 activists, social innovators, entrepreneurs and innovation intermediaries – suggest that many niche actors are distancing themselves from the concept of the sharing economy.  Here, a broader vision of a collaborative economy was offered incorporating socio-digital innovations including the sharing economy (as defined above), digital currencies (e.g. Bitcoin), open digital government and grassroots digital fabrication (e.g. the maker movement). Such visions appeared to be driven by concerns about the unsustainable nature of the prevailing centralised capitalist economic paradigm, and to be aligned with the values of citizen empowerment and the logics of community and the social movement.  Furthermore, actors within the media, including the Telegraph (Cave, 2015) in the UK and the New York Times (Singer, 2014) in the USA, have presented a rather different vision; focussing on the potential of the sharing economy to increase the flexibility of the labour market and erode workers’ rights. Hence, offering a vision aligned with values and logics including economic empowerment and the market respectively.

3. Initial steps towards a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions

Given such diverse and divergent expectations for the sharing economy’s development, the transitions research community can view the sharing economy from two distinct perspectives. First, the sharing economy can be viewed as a niche of socio-digital experiments, with the paradoxical potential to: promote more sustainable consumption and production practices; and, to reinforce the current unsustainable economic paradigm. Secondly, the sharing economy can also be viewed as a transformative niche aligned with ongoing processes integrating digital technologies into the socio-technical structures of the regime. Furthermore, these processes have important consequences for sustainability transitions (Hilty and Aebischer, 2015) across the energy, mobility, water, food regimes. However, the socio-technical transitions research community, alongside many other research communities^[2], is struggling to keep pace with the rapid development of the sharing economy. Although, there have been promising signs of engagement with: the emergence of empirical research focussed on sharing and collaborative economies (Smith et al., 2013, Martin and Upham, 2015); and, the inclusion of a transitions stream at the First International Workshop on the Sharing Economy.  Hence, much work is needed to establish and pursue a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions. To conclude this article, and as a starting point for further discussion, I offer an outline of some of the topics a research agenda might address.

The sharing economy represents a new and potentially important field of empirical study within socio-technical transitions, and research is needed to understanding the nature of, and processes within, the sharing economy niche. Initial research might focus on mapping the sharing economy niche and engaging in a preliminary assessment of the sustainability impacts of those innovations identified. Such research would be complemented by investigations focused on the dynamics of power and politics at play within the discourse contesting the sharing economy. Furthermore, there may be considerable value in exploring how the sharing economy can be governed; both as a niche in its own right, and within the broader context of efforts to govern transitions (Schot and Geels, 2008) in the energy and mobility systems. 

Studying the sharing economy also offers extensive opportunities to develop greater understanding of the processes of socio-technical transitions. Perhaps the most prominent opportunity lies in research developing understanding of the role of the web and other digital technologies in the dynamics of transitions. For example, research might investigate how digital technologies have enabled sharing economy platforms (such as Airbnb^[3]) to rapidly established a presence (i.e. socio-digital experiments) across many cities and countries, to an extent outpacing the processes of regime resistance. Furthermore, as the sharing economy offers affordances to enact diverse and potentially conflicting values, there is a considerable opportunity for studies developing much needed understand of the role of values in socio-technical transitions (Martin and Upham, 2015). Whilst, the processes by which niches interact with multiple regimes (Seyfang et al., 2014) might be better theorised by research exploring the interrelationships between the sharing economy and the energy, mobility and consumer goods regimes. Additionally, the sharing economy niche spans the for-profit, social enterprise and non-profit sectors, and hence presents an interesting empirical context in which to further develop and integrate theories of market-based and grassroots innovation. Finally, I suggest that sharing economy offers fertile ground for research focused on how innovative economic practices emerge and shape the socio-technical structures of the regime. In particular, research might assess the degree to which established theories of the dynamics of technological and social innovation (e.g. Smith et al., 2010, Haxeltine et al., 2013) might be helpful in explaining the dynamics of innovative economic practices.

References

Airbnb. 2015. About Us [Online]. Available: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/about/about-us [Accessed 26th June 2015].

Botsman, R. 2013. The Sharing Economy Lacks a Shared Defintion [Online]. Available: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/11/22/the-sharing-economy-lacks-a-shared-definition/ [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Botsman, R. & Rogers, R. 2010. What's mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live, London, UK, Collins.

Cave, A. 2015. The future of the sharing economy: why we'll all be doing odd-jobs [Online]. The Telegraph. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11427099/The-future-of-the-sharing-economy-why-well-all-be-doing-odd-jobs.html [Accessed 26th June 2015].

Haxeltine, A., Wittmayer, J. & Avelino, F. 2013. Transformative social innovations: A sustainability transition perspective on social innovation. Social Frontiers: The next edge of social innovation research. London.

Hilty, L. M. & Aebischer, B. 2015. ICT for Sustainability: An Emerging Research Field. In: Hilty, L. M. & Aebischer, B. (eds.) ICT Innovations for Sustainability. Springer International Publishing.

Martin, C. J. Under Review. The role of narratives in the contestation of the sharing economy: taking a multi-level perspective. Ecological Economics.

Martin, C. J. & Upham, P. 2015. Grassroots social innovation and the mobilisation of  values in collaborative consumption: a conceptual model The Journal of Cleaner Production.

Morozov, E. 2013. The 'sharing economy' undermines workers rights [Online]. Available: http://evgenymorozov.tumblr.com/post/64038831400/the-sharing-economy-undermines-workers-rights [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Ouishare. 2015. Ouishare Fest 2015 [Online]. Available: http://2015.ouisharefest.com/ [Accessed 29th June 2015].

Pwc. 2014. The sharing economy: how will it disrupt your business? Megatrends: the collisions. Available: http://pwc.blogs.com/files/sharing-economy-final_0814.pdf [Accessed 22nd April 2015].

Ravenelle, A. 2015. Microentrepreneur or Precariat? Exploring the Sharing Economy through the Experiences of Workers for Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber and Kitchensurfing. The First International Workshop on the Sharing Economy. Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Schot, J. & Geels, F. W. 2008. Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: theory, findings, research agenda, and policy. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 20, 537-554.

Selinger, E. 2008. Does Microcredit “Empower”? Reflections on the Grameen Bank Debate. Human Studies, 31, 27-41.

Seyfang, G., Hielscher, S., Hargreaves, T., Martiskainen, M. & Smith, A. 2014. A grassroots sustainable energy niche? Reflections on community energy in the UK. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 13, 21-44.

Singer, N. 2014. In the Sharing Economy, Workers Find Both Freedom and Uncertainty [Online]. The New York Times. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/technology/in-the-sharing-economy-workers-find-both-freedom-and-uncertainty.html?_r=1 [Accessed 26th June 2015].

Smith, A., Hielscher, S., Dickel, S., Soderberg, J. & Van Oost, E. 2013. Grassroots digital fabrication and makerspaces: reconfiguring, relocating and recalibrating innovation. Available: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=2013-02-swps-aps-sh-gdf-working-paper.pdf&site=25 [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Smith, A., Voß, J.-P. & Grin, J. 2010. Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges. Research Policy, 39, 435-448.

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^[1] The theme of Ouishare Fest was “Lost in Transition?” which the organisers expanded upon as follows: “Transition, transformation, shift: these are words we hear a lot lately to express how the economy, environment, politics and business are changing. What exactly are we transitioning to? What direction would we like to go in? What could a collaborative society look like?” (Ouishare, 2015)

^[2] A search of the Scopus database of academic literature for the term “sharing economy” returns 39 results as of 22^nd May 2015.

^[3] Airbnb was launched in August 2008 (Botsman and Rogers, 2010), as of June 2015 Airbnb (2015) claims to be active in more than 34,000 cities across more than 190 countries.

The sharing economy could end capitalism – but that's not all

I wrote this article for The Conversation. Read the original article.

The sharing economy could bring about the end of capitalism: that’s the provocative claim made by economic journalist Paul Mason, among others. But my ongoing research indicates that there are many possible futures for the sharing economy: it could transform the world of work as we know it – or it could gradually fade from the public eye.

The exact nature and impacts of the sharing economy are still disputed. The organisers of social movements, entrepreneurs, established businesses and politicians all have very different ideas of what the sharing economy is, and what it should become. For example, Share the World’s Resource (a not-for-profit civil organisation) talks about building a sharing economy based on “shared” public services, which are funded by taxation.

Meanwhile, the UK government speaks of building a sharing economy based on online peer-to-peer platforms, which enable citizens to become micro-entrepreneurs by renting out assets such as homes, driveways and pets. So it seems that a diverse range of actors can see their own hopes, fears and values reflected in the sharing economy. But one thing is for sure: online platforms such as Airbnb and Uber have grown from Silicon Valley startups to global corporations, and this trend will probably continue.

Research on the economic, environmental and social impacts of these enterprises is scarce. As a result, there is very little evidence to help us understand how the sharing economy will develop. So I analysed approximately 250 sharing-economy-related articles and reports, which contained contrasting views from advocates and critics. Based on this evidence, I mapped out four possible paths for the sharing economy: and only one of them predicts that the sharing economy will bring capitalism to its knees, as Mason holds.

Consumption 2.0

Some have argued that online sharing platforms can enable a new form of collaborative consumption, where citizen access rather than own products. For example, peer-to-peer car sharing platforms, such as Easycar Club, enable individuals to rent out their car to others when they are not using it.


The idea is that these new forms of consumption have major environmental benefits. As these practices reduce consumer demand for products, this in turn reduces the number of products manufactured and ultimately decreases carbon emissions. If this form of innovation grows significantly, the sharing economy may enable a new form of consumption.

But this path seems unlikely to be transformative: simply using products more efficiently will not, on its own, lead to a sustainable economy. By engaging in more efficient forms of consumption within the sharing economy, people save money, which they then spend on other carbon intensive other products and services. For example, someone using a car sharing platform could spend the money they save on holiday flights, thereby increasing their overall carbon emissions.

New ways of working

Much of the interest in the sharing economy – particularly in the United States – focuses on online platforms which enable citizens to engage in new forms of work. For example, Uber enables car-owners with “spare” time to work as taxi-drivers. Airbnb enables property owners with “spare” space to work as hoteliers or landlords. Taskrabbit enables anyone with “spare” time to perform tasks including cleaning, shopping and other domestic errands. These platforms enable consumers (for instance, a tourist) and service providers (an Airbnb host) to form short-term relationships.


But sharing economy workers do not automatically have access to the rights and benefits of contracted employees, such as sick pay and annual leave. And as the recent swathe of cases brought against Uber and its contemporaries has shown, there is strong opposition to these conditions on behalf of the workers themselves, and those they compete with.

If this form of innovation grows significantly, the sharing economy may come to transform the world of work. But whether you view this a path to creating new opportunities for entrepreneurship, or promoting the exploitation of low-skilled or low-income workers, rather depends on your political beliefs and values.

A fair and sustainable future

Paul Mason is not alone in predicting that the sharing economy will bring an end to capitalism. Radical grassroots actors such as Ouishare and Shareable, who are critical of the capitalist economic system, are creating a sharing economy built upon the principles of collaboration, sustainability and equality.

They talk about a sharing economy of grassroots activities, ranging from cooperatives, to open source software and hardware, to crowdfunding, to the maker movement – a social movement which enables individuals to create products, challenging the dominant systems of large-scale industrial manufacturing.

This vision includes grassroots innovations as diverse as bread co-ops, open-source communities developing tools for reducing energy demand, Kickstarter and Fab Labs, which provide people with access to the tools needed to manufacture products.

These activities share a focus on empowering communities and creating a decentralised, sustainable economic system. If these diverse forms of innovation grow significantly then the sharing economy may, indeed, bring about the end of capitalism.

Fading away

Given the diverse visions of the sharing economy, it’s questionable whether the idea will stand the test of time. It’s possible that the sharing economy will lose meaning as a concept and gradually disappear from public, media and policy discussions.

Perhaps it will be replaced by concepts such as the gig economy – referring to platforms enabling new forms of work – or the collaborative economy – referring to grassroots action to create a more sustainable economy.


It’s hard to tell which path we’re currently on. I for one hope Mason is right, and that the sharing economy will bring an end to an unsustainable system. But I fear that it’s more likely to transform the world of work in a negative way, reducing quality of life for many within society. The people championing this path are those with great power within the capitalist economy.
Meanwhile, those advocating for a path towards a more equal economy – such as grassroots organisations – are currently marginalised and disempowered. It’s clear who the odds will favour.

From the Sharing Economy to the Collaborative Economy: a transition of note for the research community?

Over recent months the concept of the sharing economy has begun to emerge within the discourse of the sustainability transitions research community: a transitions stream has been organised for the First International Workshop on the Sharing Economy; a PhD project focused on business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer models of car sharing has been advertised; and, Frank Geels noted engagement with the sharing economy as evidence of the dynamism of sustainability transitions research (see March 2015 Sustainability Transition Research Network Newsletter).  Perhaps, this interest reflects the growing media profile of, and government engagement with, the sharing economy. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore Airbnb; the Silicon Valley success story, which is so often used to exemplify the nature of the sharing economy.

However, the definition and scope of the sharing economy is much contested, and definitions which reflect the multifarious uses of the concept in practice remain elusive at best (Schor, 2014). Perhaps, the dominate definition has been offered by Botsman (2013), who argues that the sharing economy is an economic model built upon peer-to-peer platforms and “based on sharing, swapping, trading, or renting products and services, enabling access over ownership”. Furthermore, advocates including Botsman and Rogers (2010) argue that the sharing economy possesses the potential to disrupt the practices of hyper-consumption prevalent in market economies, and hence bring major environmental and social benefits. However, the sharing economy has also garnered strong critiques, amongst the most scathing Morozov’s (2013) claim that the sharing economy is a form of “neo-liberalism on steroids”. Such divergent arguments, and a growing profile, make the sharing economy a fertile domain for researchers, and the sustainability transitions research community is not alone in struggling to keep place with developments in practice[1].

Before engaging with sharing economy - to understand sustainability impacts and processes of innovation - as a research community we might benefit from engaging with the latest developments within the niche. Indeed, having done so, I have found that much of the discourse now expands upon the central ideas advocated by Botsman and Rogers (2010) - – i.e. new digitally mediated business models which enable access over ownership. My observations of the Ouishare 2015 Fest[2] – attended by approximately 1000 activists, social innovators, entrepreneurs and innovation intermediaries – suggest that many niche actors are distancing themselves from the concept of the sharing economy (as defined in the narrow terms above). Whilst, within the niche the concept of the collaborative economy has also emerged - and has been the topic of lengthy discussion at the Ouishare Fest - driven by concerns around the unsustainable nature of the prevailing capitalist economic paradigm. OuiShare (2015a), a think and do tank and network of innovators, define the collaborative economy:

“as initiatives based on horizontal networks and participation of a community. It is built on "distributed power and trust within communities as opposed to centralized institutions" (R. Botsman), blurring the lines between producer and consumer. These communities meet and interact on online networks and peer-to-peer platforms, as well as in shared spaces such as fablabs and coworking spaces.”

Similar visions of a broader sharing economy or collaborative economy have also been offered by other niche actors, and actors working at the interface between the niche and the regime (e.g. Nesta (Stokes et al., 2014), a major UK based innovation charity). Such visions share a critique of the centralised structures of the market economy, and herald the potential of, and need for, digital and social innovations which empower citizens to promote sustainability and equality. Hence, the concept of the collaborative economy connects with active research areas, e.g. grassroots innovation (Seyfang and Smith, 2007), and areas which have tended to be overlooked, e.g. digital innovation (with notable exceptions including Smith et al., 2013).

To conclude, I suggest there is a considerable opportunity for the sustainability transitions research community to develop and pursue a sharing economy research agenda that engages with both mainstream and emerging niche visions. In particular, the emerging concept of the collaborative economy is related to, but distinct from, the mainstream understanding of the sharing economy, and is hence also in need of further research. In pursuing such an agenda, a transdisciplinary research orientation might have an important role to play in supporting the formation of a robust sharing (or collaborative) economy niche with the potential to contribute to a wider transition to sustainability.

References

Botsman, R. 2013. The Sharing Economy Lacks a Shared Defintion [Online]. Available: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/11/22/the-sharing-economy-lacks-a-shared-definition/ [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Botsman, R. & Rogers, R. 2010. What's mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live, London, UK, Collins.

Morozov, E. 2013. The 'sharing economy' undermines workers rights [Online]. Available: http://evgenymorozov.tumblr.com/post/64038831400/the-sharing-economy-undermines-workers-rights [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Ouishare. 2015a. The Collaborative Economy [Online]. Available: http://ouishare.net/en/about/collaborative_economy [Accessed 21st January 2015].

Ouishare. 2015b. Ouishare Fest 2015: Lost in Transition? [Online]. Available: http://2015.ouisharefest.com/ [Accessed 26th May 2015].

Schor, J. 2014. Debating the Sharing Economy. Available: http://greattransition.org/publication/debating-the-sharing-economy [Accessed 19th January 2015].

Seyfang, G. & Smith, A. 2007. Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Environmental Politics, 16, 584-603.

Smith, A., Hielscher, S., Dickel, S., Soderberg, J. & Van Oost, E. 2013. Grassroots digital fabrication and makerspaces: reconfiguring, relocating and recalibrating innovation. Available: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=2013-02-swps-aps-sh-gdf-working-paper.pdf&site=25 [Accessed 8th January 2015].

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[1] A search of the Scopus database of academic literature for the term “sharing economy” returns 39 results [22^nd May 2015].

[2] The theme of Ouishare Fest was “Lost in Transition?” which the organiser expanded upon as follows: “Transition, transformation, shift: these are words we hear a lot lately to express how the economy, environment, politics and business are changing. What exactly are we transitioning to? What direction would we like to go in? What could a collaborative society look like?” (Ouishare, 2015b)