‘SHAREABLE CITIES’:
The urban future
If you’re a business owner, and you don’t know what the collaborative economy is, you need to learn, says April Rinne.
The collaborative economy is changing our world, she notes, and the signs are everywhere, from car-sharing to crowdfunding and beyond.
“Large companies, they’re being disrupted.
“There’s no doubt about that. And they’re fearful of becoming dinosaurs in less than a generation,” Rinne says.
“But it doesn’t mean they’re going out of business. They just need to keep up with what’s going on.”
A chief player in the global collaborative economy movement, Rinne will address a dinner and give a talk at the University of Calgary on Wednesday.
The collaborative economy is the idea of a sustainable economy built around sharing what we already have with others, whether that means our homes, cars, tools, office spaces or skills. (Go to collaborativeconsumption.com to find out more.)
The local stop is part of a national tour to promote collaborative economics as well as launch Cities for People, a movement to create more vibrant, resilient cities across Canada.
Rinne will discuss how Canadians can use technology and creativity to share resources — everything from transportation to homes — to make cities and the world a better, less wasteful place.
The new term to describe this shift in urban centres is “shareable cities,” Rinne says.
“That’s where I spend a lot of my time. I focus on policy issues, what this means for urban planning.”
Successful examples of the collaborative economy in action are found around the world. Car2Go, Airbnb and Kickstarter are just a few of the companies using its principles in action.
“What we are seeing in terms of the collaborative economy is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Rinne, who is also a board member of the World Wide Web Foundation.
“If you think about living your life that is economically and environmentally more efficient, and is a very good way to meet other people in the city where you life, that’s where the collaborative economy comes in.
“It really does all of that.”
A Har va r d - educated lawyer, Rinne and colleague Rachel Botsman (author of the bestselling book What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption) are co-founders of Collaborative Lab.
Based in San Francisco, Calif., Collaborative Lab is an advisory firm that seeks to provide market understanding as well as help with innovation for startups, established businesses, cities and government groups.
“Think of it as concentric circles,” she says.
“Our core group is very small, but we work with people and clients on every continent except Antarctica.”
For Rinne, it’s a natural extension of what she has experienced throughout her lifetime of crisscrossing the globe. A World Eco- nomic Forum Young Global Leader, she has travelled to more than 90 countries, and she has worked and lived in many of those, including India, Kenya and Peru.
She says while Canada has been a leader globally in terms of car- and bike-sharing, our country has a long way to go compared to what she has seen elsewhere.
“Canada has this wonderful legacy and jumping off point, but across every city, there are so many more needs waiting to be filled,” she says. “What I’m hoping to do is draw out different ways people can get involved.”