Key Messages

The Sharing Economy is not inherently sustainable but local governments can help to make it more so.
Community Sharing is a promising area where local governments can play proactive, enabling roles.
Addressing data gaps is critical for understanding sustainability impacts on cities.
Sustainability Filter
Six guiding questions address the ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainability. These are described in more detail in Chapter 2 of the report - and include key sub-questions.
  1. Living within ecological means - Does the Sharing Economy activity support absolute reductions in energy and materials flows to live within our ecological means?
  2. Resilience - Does the Sharing Economy activity enhance resilience and climate adaptation?
  3. Natural Systems - Does the Sharing Economy activity protect and restore natural systems?
  4. Equity - Does the sharing economy activity advance equity and social inclusion and embrace diversity?
  5. Prosperous local economies - Does the Sharing Economy activity advance economic vitality and diversity, a level of self-reliance, and decent jobs?
  6. Quality of life - Does the Sharing Economy activity enhance social connectivity and wellbeing for all?

You can learn more about the filter here.
Recommendations
The sustainability filter is applied to five sectors of the Sharing Economy of greatest interest to our local government project advisors. In each section, you will find a set of key recommendations as well as areas to watch out for, such as the rebound effect. The report also highlights the critical importance of addressing data gaps and presents recommendations.

Shared Mobility

Shared Mobility is the access to transportation services shared among users on a short-term, as-needed basis that includes: public transit; bike and scooter sharing; carsharing; ridesharing (vanpooling and carpooling); ridesourcing (e.g. Uber or Lyft); taxis; micro-transit; and commercial delivery services...

Shared Goods

Shared goods encapsulates a wide range of collaboratively owned or used goods, where goods refers to material consumer products and assets, as well as productive capital including machinery and specialized tools.​..
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Shared Energy
Shared Energy can be broadly understood as: "bottom-up, democratized start-ups enabling people to collaborate among themselves for energy creation, storage, and sharing." Here, technology is empowering people to engage in distributed generation of energy...

Addressing Data Gaps

Data, and knowledge derived from best practices, inform many aspects of municipal planning from transportation to education. Unfortunately, data collection and analysis can be a challenge for budget-constrained governments...

Shared Spaces

Shared Spaces encompasses both short-term rentals such as AirBnB, longer-term sharing of living spaces, for example through housing co-operatives, work spaces (co-working), and even personal storage and parking...
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Shared Food

Shared Food refers to a wide range of sharing activities centred on the production and consumption of food: Land sharing (backyards, farms, public spaces); redistribution of excess food; meal sharing (community kitchens, meet-ups); kitchen space and equipment)...
Community Sharing
Community Sharing is a subset of the broader Sharing Economy highlighted in the LGSE Project because of its ​particular relevance to local government. It includes a diverse set of individuals and organizations focused at a local or neighborhood scale...

Strategies for Local Governments

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Government can play a range of roles:
  • No action
  • Facilitative action
  • Preparatory actions
  • Implementation actions

It is important to note that local government roles change over time in response to a number of factors including: Shifting priorities and capacities of local government; Identification of new risks or benefits; Changing landscape of Sharing Economy actors and
activities; Evolution and maturation of each Sharing Economy activity. Chapters 5 and 6 detail these and outline the government strategies.


What are specific cities doing? Find out by reading the city case studies from the roadmap.  
Featured cities include: Vancouver, Portland, Austin, Montréal...
Read the full report