Key Categories

Transportation is an intrinsic part of a thriving urban ecosystem. However, many cities still struggle to provide comprehensive transportation systems for their inhabitants. This room showcases research, case studies and policies to enable better access to mobility and incentivize cleaner and sharing transportation options in cities.

Affordable, quality housing is a foundational requirement for a healthy, cohesive society, and the economic fortunes of a city. Yet in many of the world’s cities, housing affordability is slipping further out of reach of the average citizen. At the same time, a lot of cities have a number of dwellings that lie vacant, while people remain on waiting lists for public housing, are thrown into competition in tight rental markets, or become homeless. Policy responses in such a complex area as housing need to be both well thought out and applied. This room showcases research, case studies and policies to inform how the sharing economy plays a role in this matter.

Technological developments enabled the emergence of sharing platforms. These developments lower transaction costs and enable the creation of new products, services and markets. But at the same time new technologies can perpetuate or even deepen existing socio-economic inequities. In this room we'll provide research, case studies and policies to address the challenges and opportunities new technologies pose.

The fast paced growth of the sharing economy is changing the tourism marketplace - giving people new options for where to stay, what to do and how to get around. Especially city leaders face a challenge in striking the right balance, making sure that they capture the opportunity to stimulate innovation and support the expansion and development of tourism as a whole, while addressing the challenges it poses for the traditional tourism sector and the impacts on the city. This room demonstrates research, case studies and policies to inspire a balanced, informed city approach.

Globally, 30 to 50 percent of all food produced is lost or wasted between crop and plate. There is a large potential for the sharing economy as food sharing can decrease the high amount of food waste especially at the consumer-side. Additionally, food often travels miles between producers and consumers. The sharing economy plays a potential role in building local food economies based on local production, processing, and exchange. For example in urban farms, community gardens and -kitchens. (City) governments play an important role in removing legal barriers and facilitating the transition to a community-based food production and food sharing culture. This room contains research, case studies and food for thought regarding this topic .

The sharing economy can be a vehicle for achieving societal impact, and help address health and social challenges. The opportunities of socially driven initiatives and platforms include reducing cost of living for essential goods and services, improve well being and citizen participation, and increasing the scale and reach of care. How can we ensure that the sharing economy has a positive welfare impact for participants and society? This room contains research and case studies regarding this topic .

Increasingly, the sharing economy is moving into local energy markets. All over the world, small but powerful local power grids are forming, allowing neighbors to generate, buy, and sell excess power. Instead of selling renewable energy back to companies who then sell it to citizens, these energy sharing platforms enable citizens to sell the energy directly to their neighbors. Energy sharing allows citizens to bypass the electric company energy supply and generate, store and share energy individually or in communities even during power failures. This way, sharing plaforms enable the energy sector to become more flexible, resilient and economically efficient. A prerequisite is a deregulated energy market. Read more about this growing phenomenon in the research, case studies and rules and regulations sections.

Employment is changing dramatically. The rise of the sharing economy has introduced a convenient way to match those in need of services to those who can offer them, and all with a click of a button. The number of so called 'gig workers' or 'platform workers' is rising. Drawing the line between being economically progressive on the one hand and protecting workers on the other will become a major challenge for policymakers. This room will elaborate on this subject with research, case studies, policies and regulations.