Sustainable sharing in local communities: exploring the role of social capital

Abstract

There are many forms of sharing occurring in local communities that can help reduce overconsumption and mitigate the continuous growth of climate emissions. Lately, traditional forms of local sharing have been supplemented with internet-based peer-to-peer sharing applications. This paper applies a social capital perspective to explore the relational basis for different forms of sharing in local communities, and to inform a discussion on how local sharing can be scaled up. Based on a survey of citizens in four municipalities in Norway, four key forms of sharing are explored including p2p-sharing, sharing schemes organised in the community, sharing of time through voluntary work, and informal sharing among friends, family and neighbours. Results indicate that bridging social capital is particularly important for all sharing activities, and that time-sharing is most strongly sustained by social capital. In addition to social capital dimensions, environmental motives also contribute to people’s engagement in face-to-face local sharing. p2p-sharing, however, is to a much lesser degree related to social capital and environmental motives.