The Netherlands is often seen as a frontrunner in circularity. Yet its sharing and rental economy remains constrained by fragmented pilots, fragile business models, outdated regulations, and entrenched ownership habits. To understand these barriers and figure out how to tackle them, the Government of the Netherlands commissioned Nienke de Jong and Sami Angsthelm from the Access Economy Alliance, together with Harmen van Sprang from the Sharing Cities Alliance.
The team’s research revealed a clear gap. Although sharing models are widely recognised as strategic tools for circularity, the Netherlands still lacks a single organisation able to guide and support the systemic transition required. In short: The ambition exists, the coordination does not.
Yet the foundations are promising. Entrepreneurs are creating services across the country, and cities and regions are increasingly open to collaboration. What’s missing is a shared vision, a consistent knowledge base, and practical tools that enable effective public–private partnerships – and help pilots grow beyond isolated experiments.
To build a complete picture, the team consulted more than 50 organisations across sectors. The result is a grounded overview of the current landscape and a set of recommendations for shifting sharing and rental into a mainstream, convenient alternative to buying. Below is a summary of their key insights.
What’s holding the sharing and rental Economy back in the Netherlands?
The report identifies four recurring barriers that make it difficult for businesses and cities to develop successful services — and for people to use them:
- Fragmentation and lack of coordination: Initiatives often operate in isolation. Rules, subsidies, and expectations vary from city to city, making it hard for entrepreneurs to scale.
- Sharing is not the convenient choice: Many services are hard to find, not widely recognised, or simply less familiar than buying new.
- Fragile business conditions: Risk levels (damage, theft, non-return), insurance structures, taxation, and even product design often don’t match the realities of shared and rented use.
- Social and behavioural norms still favour ownership: Renting is sometimes perceived as less desirable. Messaging leans too heavily on moral arguments, and caring for shared products isn’t yet embedded in daily behaviour.
Recommendations for shifting the landscape
- Stop fragmentation: Move beyond isolated pilots towards shared national frameworks. Standardise legal, financial, and operational tools so cities can adopt and adapt services more easily, and companies can build on existing work rather than starting from scratch.
- Make sharing easy, visible, and attractive: Shift communication towards convenience, affordability, and reliability. Improve discoverability and create recognisable, trusted routes for citizens to access shared goods.
- Embed sharing into wider city strategies: Integrate sharing and rental services into housing plans, public space design, and retail strategies. Treat shared goods infrastructure the same way we treat bike-sharing — as part of a wider, connected system.
- Support collaboration, not competition: Strengthen public–private partnerships, enable knowledge exchange on shared challenges, and provide structural funding rather than short-term subsidies.
What a national network could unlock
A single national sharing and rental network for consumer goods can bring together municipalities, companies, researchers, and communities. This would enable:
- faster rollout of sharing services
- reduced duplication and increased impact
- greater visibility and accessibility
- better user experiences
- clearer data on what works — and what doesn’t
The Access Economy Alliance is Europe’s first network of public authorities, businesses and researchers that pools together resources, collaborations and knowledge to deliver a circular economy through access-based services.