The Sharing Economy in Madeira
The importance of the sharing economy was discussed yesterday, 22nd November, in Funchal at the conference "The Sharing Economy in Madeira", organized by ACIF-CCIM under the SharEEN Project, co-financed by the European Union.
For Portugal, the most recent data, published by the EC in June of this year, related to 2016, and in that year the "collaborative economy" market was worth 265 million euros and the number of people employed was around 8400. The contribution to the GDP ratio was 0.14% and represented 0.17% of total employment. As early as 2016, housing was the most important sector, with around five thousand workers and a revenue of around 121 million euros. By the number of people employed, secondarily came the transport (2161 workers) and revenue of around 40 million.
These data were reconfirmed by the participants in the seminar yesterday, where the role of platforms in the fight against the parallel economy and the relevance of Trust and Credibility for the survival of these same platforms were discussed.
Another idea debated was the importance of the EU do not to lose the train of innovation thanks to over-regulation of the platforms of the sharing economy, and to safeguard the rights of consumers and workers.
Finally, the question "Who benefits most from the Sharing Economy: Consumers or Platforms?" was launched, and the opinion was that all have won: the market climbed do the appearance of news facilitators that allowed the entrance of small operators, that would otherwise never be able to enter the market. The consumers have an easier access to products and services, and the works have the possibilities.
Keys ideas produced on the event:
• The economy benefited, and there was a greater redistribution of wealth;
• Self-regulation of platforms: importance of trust and security for the surveillance. Those that are not credible will withdraw;
• Change of concept "model of ownership" to "use model";
• Lack of regulation, but we must be careful not to reduce innovation in the EU;
• Protection of the consumers, self-employers and employees rights.
Shareen
SharEEN is an European pilot project on “Opportunities for European Entrepreneurs in the Sharing Economy”, co-funded by the European Commission under the Call: 251-G-GRO-PPA-16-9953. Grant agreement SI2.763745. The objective of SharEEN is to identify and link-up with collaborative economy platforms, exchange experience with all relevant stakeholders and help European SMEs, social enterprises and other relevant actors to exploit the opportunities offered by the sharing economy. In particular, the project aims at building knowledge and capacity among Enterprise Europe Network partners’ staff and other stakeholders on sharing economy, and help them define and deploy supporting services for their SMEs.
SharEEN map of regional sharing economy initiatives
The map is based on the results of the surveying activity carried out by the SharEEN project in 2018. It includes a brief geo-referenced description of a set of sharing economy initiatives, platforms and companies, operating in the eight European regions covered by the project.