Sharing Economy UK (SEUK) has recently entered a partnership with the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School to create a comprehensive “trustmark” for the sharing economy, according to a press release from the school. SEUK is joining forces with Saïd faculty to establish responsible business practices and high trust standards to guide sharing economy businesses and users.
SEUK was founded in March of 2015 to represent the UK’s sharing economy businesses. Some of its members include Airbnb, Love Home Swap, Zipcar, and Hassle.com. The sharing economy has exploded worldwide in the past decade and currently has an estimated global value of $15 billion. The creation of a set of guidelines for business practices and trust standards will help ensure the security of the sharing economy as well as propel it towards an exciting and profitable future. The trustmark will be rolled out in phases over the course of the next year.
Colin Mayer, Professor of Management Studies at Saïd, was excited at the far-reaching impacts the partnership could generate. “The sharing economy is a fundamental part of our lives and is set to become much more so in the future. Central to this is the creation of trust between platforms and users of the services and understanding the factors that promote trust is key to unlocking not only the sharing economy but economic activity in general. We are therefore delighted to be partnering with SEUK in gaining fundamental insight into how trust is fundamentally built and destroyed in the sharing economy,” he said in a press release.