Three pilots brought shared-use electric bicycles and item-lending services into housing companies and their nearby blocks. The aim is to find out how enthusiastic residents are about sharing services.
The ‘Sustainable Sharing’ piloting programme searched for solutions that support shared use of spaces and goods within housing companies and residential areas. Three pilots were selected on the basis of the tenders. The pilots will be carried out during summer and autumn 2022 in three pilot sites in the Helsinki region: Malminkartano, Leinelä and Lauttasaari. The piloting programme will be carried out as part of the Circular Green Blocks project.
Two of the pilots will focus on borrowing and sharing items. One of them will be carried out by CoReorient Oy and the other by Lainappi Oy. The third pilot concerns shared-use electric bicycles in housing companies and it will be run by Willari.
The pilot by CoReorient Oy will be carried out in Katajaharju in Lauttasaari. There is a self-service point that will be serving as a shared loaning centre with different commodities for the block of ten housing companies . Residents will be able to propose items that could be made available for lending. They can also increase the item selection by offering their own items to be borrowed. The service will operate on a browser-based reservation system, and it will also be developed during the pilot. The pilot will examine other features that promote sharing and communality and that could be developed for the service.
Lainappi’s pilot will be located in a housing company hobby room in Malminkartano. The Lainappi box will contain items requested by residents for shared use. In addition to this, residents will have their own private group on the Lainappi platform, through which they can lend their own goods easily and safely to other residents of the same housing company. Sharing with neighbours is a handy way to save money and nature when every household doesn’t need to own everything. In addition to the development of lending technology, the pilot aims at finding out how the lending service affects the community of a housing company.
Willari will bring electric bicycles and a children’s bike trailer to a VAV housing company in Leinelä in Vantaa. The shared use of bicycles has been piloted before with the Tampere Student Housing Foundation, but now the pilot is being carried out for the first time with a housing company. The bikes are available to all residents through a common booking calendar. The pilot aims at finding out whether residents are interested in shared services and what the best model of using shared-use bikes in housing companies is.
Overall, the objective of the ‘Sustainable Sharing’ piloting programme is to help housing companies and the property management sector in finding ways to implement new solutions in housing companies, and promoting sharing economy and sustainable living in residential blocks.
The pilots are monitored by the City of Helsinki, the Finnish Real Estate Management Federation, the Finnish Real Estate Federation and Heka.
Circular Green Blocks
The Circular Green Blocks project (9/2021–8/2023) promotes circular and sharing economy in residential blocks together with housing companies, businesses and the City. The project is implemented by the Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority HSY, Forum Virium Helsinki, Aalto University and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Union’s COVID-19 recovery efforts.
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