Client: Kringwinkel, City of Amsterdam, City of The Hague, City of Ghent, City of Dortmund, City of Béthune, City of Valenciennes, We Right-Click, The Rediscovery Centre, Made., IESEG School of Management, University of Luxembourg
Date: January 2026-June 2029
Location: North-West Europe
Across Europe, citizens continue to purchase large quantities of under-utilised consumer goods, such as DIY tools, electronics and leisure equipment. This is largely due to the limited rental options available and the lack of awareness surrounding existing access services. As a result, people spend unnecessary money on items they rarely use and that occupy valuable space in their homes. These consumption patterns also reinforce an unsustainable economic model in which goods are overproduced and valuable resources wasted.
Bax Innovation was contracted by Kringwinkel Antwerp to develop the project concept and proposal for ACCESS Hubs: a new EU-funded initiative designed to expand and strengthen rental and sharing services across Europe.
Challenge
SMEs are essential to making the access economy accessible to wider audiences, and yet they often lack the capacity to experiment with new access-based models.
At the same time, existing access services often struggle to promote their offerings and attract new users, largely because citizens are still unfamiliar with this new way of consuming.
Approach
The Bax team led the development of the EU project “ACCESS Hubs”, which secured funding through the Interreg NWE programme. The project aims to (1) support SMEs, NGOs, and social enterprises in expanding their access-based offerings; (2) increase citizens’ awareness of the access economy through events, online platforms, and local branding; and (3) help municipalities shape the governance conditions and regulations needed to scale their local access ecosystems over time.
A key element is the “aggregator”: a digital hub that showcases all local access-economy services in one place. This concept will be piloted in seven municipalities to help residents learn about, find and take advantage of rental services in their local area.
Impact
ACCESS Hubs supports 12 European partners to collaborate on building an advanced, integrated access economy over 3.5 years.
