Towards Amsterdam Sharing City – Interview with Pieter van de Glind and Harmen van Sprang

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Pieter van de Glind and Harmen van Sprang are the co-founders of ShareNL , a Dutch knowledge and networking platform that connects and informs initiatives from the sharing economy: consumers, businesses, organisations, governments, research institutions and media. Founded at the idea stage in 2012, in 2013 Pieter and Harmen set up the actual shareNL platform and started building on it. The team has now grown to include four more team members helping them in their work.

One important initiative started by shareNL is Amsterdam Sharing City. They work together with the city’s Economic Board, among a broad range of other local stakeholders, to make Amsterdam the first official “Sharing City” in Europe, following international examples like Seoul in South Korea and San Francisco in the US ( BayShare ).

In this interview, we asked Pieter and Harmen to share some of their experiences with this still relatively young project.

P&H: It evokes the transition from closed to open. From ownership to access.

P&H: A couple of sharing economy entrepreneurs discovered the need for an overarching platform in the Netherlands. We stepped into making this platform happen while we were still studying and working on other things. Pieter at the time was doing research on the consumer potential of collaborative consumption. Co-founder Harmen van Sprang stepped in while he was working as a freelance innovation manager within the field of creatieve industries in Amsterdam. However, the main reason we ended up doing this is because we have a lot of passion for it.

P&H: In Amsterdam it was sparked by presentations we did in front of policy makers and city officials. We demonstrated the potential of embracing the sharing economy to them and we ended up working with the Amsterdam Economic Board, which is a triangle of government – research – industry.

Putting on Collaborative Economy glasses can change problems into solutions in all kinds of fields (mobility, healthcare, social cohesion, sustainability, etc.).

P&H: The best case would be a combination. Just because this new economy has many impacts (social, mobile, environmental, economic). However in Amsterdam its most likely going to be the sustainability department, even though economic affairs is interested too.

P&H: Within the Amsterdam Sharing City Model we work specifically not just with government but with all stakeholders that make our city happen. Including companies, schools, neighborhood platforms, research institutions, etc. We will learn more about the answer to this question during the coming months.

P&H: A collaboration tool that creates a fluent network of stakeholders who can easily join forces when necessary, in combination with a clear overview of knowledge we have on the possibilities that the CE offers to (combinations of) stakeholders.

P&H: It will be dominant. We hope ownership of shared goods will be local and operated based on the commons.

P&H: We try to create understanding through round table meetings and we believe it’s crucial to involve all stakeholders (including challenged industry). This is still very much a learning experience.

P&H: The main difficulty really is to keep yourself sustainable. We are a small organization that takes a lot of work on our shoulders. The key trick is to put the energy where the energy is and never start to pull a dead horse (Dutch expression). Besides that we have not experienced big fallbacks.

i) In your experience, what is the best way to get people from different backgrounds to collaborate and share?

Through round tables.

ii) Can you name any particular advantages and disadvantages with working in the Dutch context?

To see Pieter’s take on this, have a look at those seven reasons why Amsterdam will be a sharing city:

Thanks a lot Pieter and Harmen, we look forward to following the work of shareNL!

Photo credit: Merlijn Doomernik

Stina Heikkilä

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