The sharing city as a platform for a more sustainable city environment

The collaborative economy represents a new way of thinking about business, exchange, value and community. Activities and models within the collaborative economy enable access instead of ownership, encourage decentralised networks over centralised institutions, provide new models to unlock wealth and often do so to a wider group of stakeholders. They make use of idle assets and create new marketplaces. It seems there are numerous environmental savings and resource utilisation benefits that follow from wide-spread adoption of collaborative models. Moreover, there may be a flow of social benefits that come from engagement and enhancement of community spirit and belongingness. This paper will explore the concept of the collaborative economy and sharing cities as well as questions related to what cities stand to gain through the adoption of sharing initiatives, how a city can start promoting collaborative lifestyles and be used as platforms for sharing.