Eco-efficiency of car-sharing at risk?

Georg Wilke and Daniel Bongardt, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy

Keywords

Mobility, Car-sharing, Sustainable mobility, Everyday mobility, Car ownership, Eco-efficiency, Eco-sufficiency, Routines, Socio-cultural context

Abstract

Until now, car-sharing is a mobility service with positive ecological effects (especially regarding CO2). But ongoing system transformations in numerous German car-sharing organisations could jeopardize these positive effects on a medium term.

The system transforming of car-sharing is, at the same time , the precondition and the result of the aspired diffusion of car-sharing on the transport market. Many car-sharing providers who started as civic self-help projects turn to profit oriented business corporations. New car-sharing companies as Shelldrive or the DB CarSharing interpret their services as an offer for a flexible short-term car hire. This change results from the activities of mainly commercially oriented providers to canvass new customers. The intention is to reach customers from outside the initial car-sharing milieus. The original service was an ecological innovation and the majority of customers still adheres to this origin. But if this strategy proves to be successful, it is possible that not only new customers can be acquired but that the general use and, consequently, the eco-balance of car-sharing could change.

In this respect, intermediate results from a current research project on the future of car-sharing in Germany are presented. Based on systematic reflections on the ecological effects of car-sharing, the results of theoretical and empiric examinations of the change on the supply- and demand-side show that it will be necessary to give the current research perspective another direction and to amend the image of car-sharing.