Product-as-a-Service business models enables the inevitable shift from a linear take, make, waste economy to a circular take, make, reutilize economy. This creates an opportunity for companies to build truly sustainable businesses. To do this we need to shift the accountability and ownership of products from the customer to the producer, creating an incentive to produce products that have longer lifetimes and able to serve multiple customers.

With a PaaS offering, benefiting from the full life of your products, you can create a more sustainable, profitable and resilient business.

In a linear supply chain, the economy follows the take, make, waste approach: commodities are extracted from the earth, processed, assembled and sold to the market. After the sale the producer and distributor maintain no responsibility for the product. Most products eventually end up as landfill or are incinerated. There is a lack of incentive to produce durable products. By contrast, producers are incentivised to manufacture products which last for a short period of time to increase sales.

In a circular PaaS supply chain, the role of the retail/sales company is replaced by a service provider. Instead of paying for ownership of a product, in a PaaS business model the customer pays for access to the product together with the additional services provided. In contrast to a sales driven business model, in a PaaS business model service providers retain ownership of the products and are therefore incentivised to create value by offering high-quality, durable products that can be easily upgraded, repaired, refurbished and/or taken back at the end of their useful life.