Malmö
Malmö is a culturally diverse city with rich industrial heritage and a strong vision to become a knowledge hub while advancing sustainability. Sharing organisations mainly engage with consumer goods sharing (e.g. bikes, electric scooters, cars, clothes, toys, tools, sports equipment), and are they are led by Malmö City, SMEs or they are community-based. Since 2014, Malmö City has included the development of collaborative and access-based consumption, circular and sharing economy to advance sustainable lifestyles in its Action Plans for its Environmental Programme. The City promotes sharing of consumer goods. It does not engage with the platform economy in accommodation and mobility sectors as it has not encountered any challenges with large platforms (e.g. Airbnb or Uber). These are regulated by national legislation. It also considers the largest sustainability potential in advancing the sharing of consumer goods.
City Strategies, Agenda and Position on Sharing
Malmö does not have any local strategy on sharing but has an ambition to develop one. In its Action Plan for the Environmental Programme 2009-2020 it stresses that continuous support from the municipality is needed for specific sharing and circular economy organisations. The Action Plan sets a goal to develop partnerships between different actors to advance sustainable lifestyles by focusing on the sharing economy, circular economy and sustainable textiles. The Environmental Department is responsible for this task while other departments may be involved. The Environmental Department works with sharing at a strategic level through three projects: Malmö Innovation Arena, Sharing Cities Sweden and Sharing City Malmö. Sharing Cities Sweden is funded by Swedish Innovation Agency VINNOVA, Swedish Energy Agency and Swedish Research Council FORMAS. As part of this programme, the area of Sege Park will be transformed into a living and sharing hub with many sharing services available for its dwellers. Other departments at Malmö City work with sharing at the operational level and include Streets and Parks, Leisure, Culture, Libraries and Service Departments. The City is a member of the Sharing Cities Alliance since 2017.
mobile lab in malmö
Sharing and the City researcher Yuliya Voytenko Palgan organised a mobile research lab in Malmö on 7 March 2018. The purpose of the mobile research lab was to explore sharing services and the development of the sharing economy in Malmö. Mobile research labs bring together a group of researchers and investigators who conduct interviews and site visits together following a structured process. The mobile research lab in Malmö involved a clothes sharing and swapping store Swopshop, the City of Malmö electric bike sharing initiatives, an organisation supporting start-ups Drivhuset, and a library for sharing books, space and things Garaget. Read a report from the mobile research lab.
sharing cities synthesis report
In April 2019, Sharing Cities Sweden published a synthesis report Sharing Cities: Exploring the Emerging Landscape of the Sharing Economy in Cities. It captures the lessons learned and ambitious goals of the test-beds in Stockholm, Malmö, Umeå and Göteborg. The document contains articles on the journeys of the test-beds, a discussion of designing test-beds as urban living labs, insights into governing sharing cities, and an overview of strategic thinking on sharing cities. Sharing and the City researcher Yuliya Voytenko Palgan contributed with expert note on the municipal governance of sharing.”