Developing B2B electric car sharing as a sustainable mode of work travels. A community-based affordances perspective

Abstract

A combination of business-to-business car sharing and electric cars—shared electric cars (SECs)—has the potential to significantly reduce emissions from local travels during work time in organisations. In this paper, we analyse the uptake of SECs in two communities of mobile workers in Norway based on a combination of community of practice and affordances theories. The term community-based affordance is coined to describe how new mobility technologies are enacted and made sense of in the community, leading to transformations in work and mobility practices. Five community-based affordances are located for the SEC-system as follows: replacements of private cars, customised use of vehicles, rapid reimbursement, co-riding to meetings and commuting mode reconfigurations. Together, these affordances indicate how an SEC- system can contribute to the development of sustainable mobility practices in enterprises with many mobile workers.