“Materials as a Service”, or for short, MaaS, is currently explored as an innovative business model to further global justice within a circular economy through exploring new pathways for global resource trade that are based on the transfer of “the right to use a material”, i.e. usufruct, rather than transferring ownership. That way a resource rich but economically and technologically less developed country (as typical for Africa) could benefit from retaining the wealth of its mineral resources and generate a permanent source of income in form of an ongoing rental to the local community where those resources are mined and which bear the brunt of the mining impact. The resource stock of Resources that are needed by the Global North now e.g. to drive the EU Energy Transition would have to be returned eventually to the sources of origin as part of the contractual obligation and would be managed under a rental agreement in combination with the contractual obligation to guarantee their full value and future utility, making circular design and production a prerequisite.
To date a Theory of Change (meant to guide on further research focus and including a pilot project to test the basic MaaS trade flow principles along an entire value chain) has been developed by an international Thinktank made up of founding members within ACEN, Het Groene Brein and Turntoo with regular support and strategic advice from Chatham House, as well as academic researchers based in the Netherlands, the UK and South Africa.
