Collaborative Economy

Green Industries SA is a first-mover in the collaborative economy because it is an effective way to avoid waste, guide social change and support sustainable consumption.

Our focus includes:

  • Collaborative systems of consumption and production, including the Sharing Economy, the Commons and Distributed Manufacturing
  • Digital platforms for social innovation
  • Bringing leading thinkers to South Australia for workshops and engagement sessions with the public sector, community groups, business and the not for profit sector in South Australia.

Share N Save

Green Industries SA funds and manages Australia's first government supported and citizen driven platform for mapping the Sharing or Collaborative Economy, Share N Save: www.shareNsave.com.au

Launched in 2013, the Share N Save website lets groups and individuals map the location and type of materials and resources they can share with the community. People can list their group or activity for free on the Share N Save map to help more people discover what they are doing and get involved, or you can use the site to find groups, events and activities in your local area. You can also list your skills and things you have to offer or you can ask for things you need, known as an 'offers and needs' marketplace. The strength of Share N Save is that it allows people to connect and collaborate with their peers (known as peer to peer or 'P2P') quickly and easily and to search the whole of South Australia for shareable resources and activities that interest you.

In keeping with the philosophy of sharing and collaboration, the software that powers Share N Save is available free of charge as an Open Source software kit that you can run yourself. Share N Save can be downloaded from Github. If you're interested in a turnkey solution for mapping the Collaborative Economy in your area and you don't want to install and manage software, Green Industries SA offers a fee for service solution to get you up and running in minutes with your own customisable version of Share N Save. Contact us if you would like to know more.

Leading Thinkers on Collaboration and New Economic Models

Green Industries SA collaborates with other government agencies (such as the Department of State Development and the Office for Digital Government) and local organisations (such as the Don Dunstan Foundation and the Adelaide Festival of Ideas) to bring leading international thinkers to South Australia.

Previous visits include:

  • Michel Bauwens (Belgium) from the P2P Foundation
  • Michael Shuman (USA) local economy building expert and author of Growing Local Living Economies: A Grassroots Approach to Economic Development 
  • Charles Durrett (USA) architect, co-housing neighbourhood and communities expert
  • Joshua Vial and Damian Sligo-Green (New Zealand) from Enspiral, a collective of social enterprise ventures and social entrepreneurs