Purpose: In order to guide sustainability research on the sharing economy, the purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive framework that captures the wide range of activities and business models that are considered to be part of the sharing economy. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a systematic literature review and a content analysis, existing typologies are identified and analyzed for their conceptual intersections. Finally, categorizations from 43 documents are integrated into one framework. Findings: Four main dimensions are identified as being used in different contexts to characterize sharing systems and were combined to form one comprehensive typology: shared good or service, market structure, market orientation, and industry sector. Originality/value: The proposed typology is able to distinguish sharing activities based on their similarities and differences. Social, economic, and communicational avenues for the term “sharing” are merged into a conceptual foundation of the sharing economy. This enables researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to position their projects in the broad field of sharing. By discussing inherent tensions with regard to sustainability of the sharing economy, the offered categorizations can help to guide future research and policy intervention. Last but not least, professional managers should find valuable ideas for new business models.

The dissemination of decentralized renewable energy generation, storage and smart metering devices has led to the need for new business models and coordination mechanisms in the energy sector. At the same time, the emerging sharing economy focuses on using digital platforms to coordinate value creation on a decentralized level. While sharing concepts have already been applied to specific energy technologies and microgrids, a more general understanding of what the sharing economy means in the context of the energy sector is still missing. This paper aims to bring these two topics together and to analyze their interfaces and overlaps. For this purpose, this paper draws from existent scientific publications, reports, blog posts, and websites as well as company workshops to discuss which activities and characteristics of the sharing economy might be applicable to the energy sector. Results show that there are significant overlaps in characteristics of the sharing economy and of the transitioning energy system. Furthermore, a broad range of business models within the energy system were found to be based on sharing resources. The findings of this study open up a range of new research and business opportunities at the interface of the sharing economy and the transitioning energy system.