Table 3 SDG and risks of sharing economy practices

Goal 1.

No poverty

Sharing economy can contribute to increase business activities, income generation, and growth. However, the benefits of sharing can be concentrated in the hands of few, as demonstrated by the creation of large monopolies as Kickstarter, Uber, Etsy, and Airbnb. The economies of scale and the network externalities characterizing the use of the Internet platform are presently reducing the market of small and local enterprise, with consequent impacts on income generation and redistribution. In addition, the lack of clear regulation on national and international taxation can contribute to increasing the accumulation of financial capital and to reduce the public resources generally used to reduce inequalities and social disparities (Murillo et al. 2017; Kasprowicz 2016)

Goal 5.

Gender equality

The development of business models based on the use of spare time and resources could increase the workload of the female population in a context where family-care-related activities and activities taking place at home (such as Airbnb or Couchsurfing) are not considered by national accountability. In addition, some studies published, for example, by Edelman and Luca (2014), Cansoy and Schor (2017), and Ge et al. (2016) highlight that racial disparities have not been decreased by the development of sharing activities. On the contrary, Afro-American Airbnb and Afro-American Uber drivers resulted to be discriminated in terms of less guests and longer waiting time and cancellations

Goal 8.

Decent work and economic growth

Based on the idea of freelance work and flexible employment opportunities, the sharing economy has been framed as a business model able to reduce the working constraints and to increase the opportunities for self-employment and independent contractors. The lack of pension and insurance, together with income instability and insecuriety are some of the main side effects generated by the working structure proposed by the sharing activities. At the present stage, the lack of proper regulations has generated working conditions generally classified not as decent as those characterizing the traditional working market (Carboni 2016)

Goal 9.

Industry, innovation, and infrastructure

The lack of clear international regulations around the storage and management of the personal information collected through the platforms can generate privacy-related issues. In addition, the large availability of information related to consumer preferences can be used by companies to target advertising tailored promotions

Goal 10.

Reduce inequality

At the present stage, the benefits of the sharing activities are not universally inclusive; on the contrary they tend to concentrate on certain groups of individuals. According to Stein (2015), for example, the additional revenue generated by sharing activities mainly benefits people with a middle- or upper-income level and excludes the low-income categories, with limited goods to share. In addition, the countryside or the remote areas result to have a reduce opportunity to share due to the lack of Internet coverage and low density of sharing activities. In addition, the difficulties that a relevant percentage of the world population is experiencing in using the information technologies (for income, cultural, and aging constraints) can contribute to generate an undemocratic system of asset provision

Goal 11.

Sustainable city and communities

As reported above, the use of sharing activities does not seem to provide a major contribution in the creation of social bonds and collaboration. In addition, the increased affordability of goods and services and the creation of new markets can expand the volume of commerce with consequent impacts on hyper-consumption, waste generation, and pollution (Demailly and Novel 2014; Acquier et al. 2017)

Goal 12.

Responsible production and consumption

Environmentally friendly claims are reported by most of the companies involved in sharing activities. However, the market-related structure and the for-profit dominated logic that characterizes most of the sharing activity generally contribute to expand the volume of commerce and to increase the pressure on environment (Martin 2016)

Goal 13.

Climate action

At the present stage, no clear evidence exists around the reduction of energy and material demand. On the contrary, the increasing affordability of goods and services and the expansion of market activity contribute to increase the consumption of natural resources together with the production of pollution and waste. In addition, the short-term and temporary use of the goods available in a sharing context generally leads to a lack of caring attitude and increases the turnover of the assets available in the market (Bocker and Meelen 2017; Wilhelms et al. 2017)