Guys I have a good news for you, we are listed amongst the Top 10 Indian Economy Podcast charts by Feedspot! Can you believe that! Since Oct 2020 we have already uncovered more than 40 live examples of circular businesses. Thank you so much for tuning in every week, I truly enjoy going that extra mile to dig out interesting examples just for you.

While we have uncovered so many examples in the past, today I want us to take a step back..relax and take a relook at the basics of circular business model, but first let’s understand a business model in simple terms.

A business model is a company’s strategy for making a profit.

Joan Magretta states that “A good business model answers some age-old questions, ‘Who is the customer? And what does the customer value?’

It also answers the fundamental questions such as: How do we make money in this business? What is the underlying economic logic that explains how we can deliver value to customers at an appropriate cost?”

If we break it down further, A business model, has two parts:

“Part one includes all the activities associated with making something: designing it,

purchasing raw materials, manufacturing, and so on.

Part two includes all the activities associated with selling something: finding and reaching customers, transacting a sale, distributing the product, or delivering the service.

Now what makes a business model circular?

When viewed from the lens of Circular Economy, waste refers to any kind of underutilization of resources or assets.. Are you with me there?

There is one primary difference between a circular model and traditional model-The circular business models are engineered to reduce the extraction of virgin resources from earth’s surface, they limit the generation of industrial and consumer waste, but with an aim to create new, profitable revenue streams in the process.

There are four distinct types of waste that circular models seek to eliminate. 

They are:

1) Wasted resources

2) Wasted capacities

3) Wasted lifecycles

4) Wasted embedded values

To address the above types, there are five methods that are widely accepted as models for businesses seeking guidance to maximize their participation in the circular economy.

These were developed by Accenture and for this episode I’ve referred to two reports- one is “Accelerating India’s Circular Economy Shift” & 2nd one is Veolia’s Join the Circular Economy E-book.

The 5 circular business models are:

1) Circular Supply Chain

2) Resource Recovery

3) Product life extension

4) Sharing Platform

5) Product as a service

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Keywords : What is a circular economy? ; Circular Economy Podcast ; Circular Business Models ; Circular Design