Linking dynamics in consumer behavior and product life cycles in environmental assessments of shared mobility systems: A literature review

Abstract

Sharing economy businesses (SEB) have attracted attention for their potential to reduce environmental impacts compared to conventional business models. While it is often assumed that SEB enable more sustainable modes of consumption, it is still a challenge to clarify the desirable linkage between consumers and business providers by means of services, products, and digital platforms, due to complexity and uncertainty in consumer behavior. To address this, a systematic review of literature that evaluates the environmental impacts of SEB, using shared mobility systems (SMS) as a case study, was conducted. An analysis is presented on how studies have addressed the above challenges, extracting key factors identified in literature to determine the net environmental effects of SMS, which can be useful in re-designing them for environmental sustainability.