The sharing economy is one of the fastest-growing areas of the world economy, and it’s not slowing. Books, cars, flats, and everything in between is up for sharing these days, and it's big business.

Since its launch in 2008, Airbnb has been used by over 150 million people around the world. It is the most prominent example of a huge sharing economy, in which people rent beds, cars, boats, and other assets directly from each other, coordinated via the internet.

Despite the setbacks faced by many businesses in the sharing economy due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, future projections for this business model are looking good. However, as this area of the economy grows, sharing economy best practices need to be defined to protect both businesses, consumers, and governments.

This is where sharing economy standards come in.

What are the Benefits of Sharing Economy Standards?

The sharing economy was born, at least in part, with the spirit of creating communities and reducing over-consumption. While some of that remains, there has also been a sharp shift of focus towards price and convenience, bringing with it as many opportunities as challenges.

Consumers may pay less and get new forms of goods, services, or experiences, but questions are sometimes raised over privacy, reliability, or trustworthiness.

There are also issues related to working conditions, providing convenience for some, precarity for others. Some believe that issues such as these are preventing the sharing economy from reaching its full potential.

Sharing economy standards can reduce these woes and exploit the benefits that such a business model can bring, by providing internationally agreed ways of working that consider everyone’s needs - consumers, business, and government.

Technical Committee Chair, Dr Masaaki Mochimaru, said standards can both accentuate the positive aspects of the sharing economy and reduce the risks and issues.

“One of the key benefits of this new business model for an organization is the effective utilization of unused resources.”

“On the flip side, however, there are potential risks related to transparency and accountability, safety and security, and other issues such as protecting workers and managing the platforms. All of which are areas that standards can help with.”

To read about how standards support new trends in the service industry, click here.

The Importance of Sharing Economy Standard BS ISO 42500

BS ISO 42500 Sharing economy – General principles provides guidance intended to ensure safe and trustworthy transactions by encouraging optimal resource use. When undertaken in accordance with laws and the sorts of principles set out in standards, this optimization can also help support environmental objectives.

BS ISO 42500 provides a robust foundation upon which other more detailed sharing economy standards will be based. Together, these will form a suite of standards offering operational guidance for the trustworthiness and safety of the sharing economy.

According to Dr Kernaghan Webb, Convenor of the group of experts that developed the standard, issues such as products or services not meeting environmental, social, and other expectations are all barriers to the growth of the sharing economy. Other obstacles include the lack of user privacy safeguards, data protection breaches, and the absence of clear procedures for filing complaints.

“The sharing economy has the potential to truly transform our world, reducing overconsumption and even creating communities,” he said. “Its growth depends on there being a solid base of trust built through transparency and accountability. ISO 42500 was developed with this in mind.”

ISO 42500 and over 100,000 more internationally recognized standards are available for simple and flexible access with a BSI Knowledge subscription. In your trust-critical industry, our subscription service puts the control in your hands, with traceability to monitor and demonstrate your business's access to standards, and self-serve functionality that enables you to manage your subscriptions, standards, users, and content quickly and simply. Request to learn more.

If your organization operates in the sharing economy, ensure that you are working to sharing economy best practices, by buying standard BS ISO 42500 today.