Background

The term “sharing economy” was officially added to the Oxford English dictionary in 2015 and is defined as “an economic system in which assets or services are shared between private individuals, either free or for a fee, typically by means of the Internet.”

Over the last several years, the sharing economy has grown significantly. Many well-established industries have been transformed into new models built around the shared creation and consumption of goods and services. This fast-growing and constantly changing marketplace has prompted the need for the development of potential tools to help aid policy development and better protect consumers and industry alike.

About the Shared Economy IWA

SCC will be hosting an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) workshop, known as an International Workshop Agreement (IWA), to identify potential standardization solutions that support an effective and efficient shared and collaborative economy. 

This workshop, presented in collaboration with the CSA Group and the Office of Consumer Affairs, is a recognized ISO workshop and builds on a 2015 event hosted by SCC’s Consumer and Public Interest Panel (CPIP) in which experts came together to discuss “The Connected Consumer in 2020.” They also explored how standard ISO/NP 20488, Online Consumer Reviews -- Principles and requirements for collection, moderation and delivery processes for online consumer reviews could benefit consumers by reducing risk when buying and accessing services online. At that panel, experts stressed that although the sharing-economy business model has many advantages, there was a need for governments, standards organizations and consumer organizations to collaborate on regulating the emerging “prosumer” (consumer/producer) business model. 

Governments worldwide have struggled to fit these businesses and services into existing frameworks and most of these efforts have been piecemeal and fragmented. International standards can make a significant contribution to addressing the current challenges of existing sharing-economy business models.

The Shared Economy IWA aims to:

• Articulate high-level principles for the sharing economy
• Foster the sharing of knowledge and best practices on meeting challenges that arise from sharing economy business models
• Support the development of innovative responses to these challenges across multiple service sectors
• Propose standardization solutions that can be used to address a rapidly emerging market need or public policy requirement and as a precursor to an international standard

Workshop Information:

When: March 21-23, 2017

Where: CSA Group, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. 

Participation in the workshop is open to any interested organization, company or person.

Delegates interested in attending must fill out the registration form on page 7 of the attached agenda and email the completed form to isd-eni@scc.ca. Space is limited so delegates are encouraged to register early.

Inquiries about this workshop can be sent to SCC at isd-eni@scc.ca.