AI-generated summary
The sharing or peer-to-peer economy, also known as the collaborative economy, revolves around individuals or companies exchanging, renting, or sharing goods and services, often facilitated by intermediaries. Platforms like Uber and Airbnb exemplify this model, which fosters mutual reliance to meet needs efficiently. While it presents fresh opportunities for entrepreneurs and consumers alike, it also necessitates an adaptation phase to integrate new providers alongside traditional market players. The European Commission supports this transition by seeking balanced policies that encourage innovation while safeguarding social and consumer interests. Additionally, the collaborative economy can enhance civic engagement, enabling residents to participate directly in urban development decisions. Environmentally, studies have shown that using collaborative transport services often leads to equal or lower emissions compared to conventional methods.
Sustainability is increasingly recognized by business leaders as vital for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), though many struggle to reconcile ecological responsibility with profitability amid competitive pressures. Evidence from the Carbon Disclosure Project suggests that companies excelling in reducing greenhouse gases also tend to outperform financially. Innovative firms like Jeanología demonstrate how traditional sectors such as textiles can adopt sustainable, collaborative models, saving vast resources like water. Movements like B-Corp further exemplify businesses committed to social and environmental impact alongside profits. Achieving the SDGs requires improvements in ecological and economic efficiency, underpinned by governance reforms in both companies and public institutions to fully harness the collaborative economy’s potential for positive change.
Companies and consumers can participate in a circular model in which waste reduction and use are key.
Sometimes also known as the sharing or peer-to-peer economy, in the sharing economy – which we analyse in depth in our Disruptive Business Models report – participants depend on each other to meet their wants and needs. This model is based on giving, exchanging, borrowing,
Uber or Airbnb are just two examples of companies that promote the collaborative economy among the many that have already joined this trend.
Threat or opportunity?
The collaborative economy offers new opportunities for citizens and entrepreneurs, but, like any disruptive movement, an adaptation process is necessary to facilitate the entry of new service providers into the environment of existing market operators.
In order to smooth this transition and provide a level playing field, the European Commission is looking at how to encourage the development of new and innovative services and the temporary use of assets, while ensuring adequate social and consumer protection.
Beyond the private sphere, this type of economy can also allow and promote participation and dialogue with public administrations in matters such as urban rehabilitation, making it easier for residents themselves – either individually or in the form of associations – to be involved in decision-making for the actions carried out in their neighbourhood. for example.
Already in 2017, a study by the European Union concluded that the advantages of this system were also felt in the environment. The environmental impact of making a trip through a company that is based on a collaborative economy model is generally less than or equal to traveling with traditional transport.
How to make sustainability profitable?
The majority of CEOs interviewed in Accenture’s 2019 United Nations Global Compact sustainability study recognize that sustainability must be a top priority for all companies, especially in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
While these managers recognize the opportunity to make these sustainability efforts as a competitive advantage, they also wonder how to make this contribution while being profitable, a concern that arises especially from economic constraints and competition.
The other side of the coin is the Carbon Disclosure Project, which ensures that the companies best positioned in their leadership index when it comes to avoiding greenhouse gas emissions also generate superior returns in the stock market.
Innovating in textiles
A good example of how innovation can be made in a sector as traditional as textiles and make it more sustainable and compatible with the collaborative economy is Jeanología, a company that was born in 1994 with sustainability as its flagship and that, in addition to being part of the Cre100do Foundation programme – of which FIBK is a patron and founder – has also collaborated with the Bankinter Innovation Foundation through Akademia, giving several sessions. This technology manufacturer offers sustainable textile solutions with which it aims to promote new operating models.
His resume highlights being responsible for the creation of a third of all jeans manufactured in the world. The direct consequence of this is to have managed to save, to date, 15,417,870 cubic meters of water in the process.
But Jeanologia’s is not an isolated case, fortunately. B-Corp is an international movement with a presence in Spain, which brings together companies that not only seek to be profitable, but also to have a social, environmental and economic impact for all their stakeholders: workers, suppliers, customers, communities, the environment and, naturally, shareholders. They commit to working to reduce inequality and poverty, care for the environment, strengthen communities, and create high-quality jobs with dignity and purpose.
Daniel Truran, an expert at the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, explains very well all the implications of seeking sustainability and how to make it profitable:
Collaboration and SDGs, hand in hand
Therefore, if we all want to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we need to make various improvements in both ecological and economic efficiency.
Although the collaborative economy has the potential to promote the necessary changes in collective consumer behaviour, it is also necessary that changes and improvements in the governance models of companies and public bodies that promote, enhance and support this evolution take place without further delay.
Director general de ebbf, embajador B Corp en B Lab Europe
