HARARE – Circular Business Models: Rethinking How Value Is Created in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean businesses have long operated in an environment defined by constraint. Currency instability, supply chain disruptions, power shortages, and limited access to affordable long-term capital have forced firms to prioritise adaptability and efficiency. Yet within these structural pressures lies a largely underexploited opportunity: circular business models.
Globally, the circular economy is rapidly shifting from an environmental ideal to a commercial strategy. Projections indicate that circular markets could unlock well over US$1.5 trillion in economic value by 2040. While Zimbabwe represents only a modest share of this potential, the underlying logic of circularity — generating greater value from fewer resources — is particularly relevant to economies facing persistent volatility and resource limitations.
What is a circular business model?
A circular business model is designed to create and capture value by keeping products, components, and materials in use at their highest possible value for as long as feasible. Unlike the traditional linear model, which follows a predictable path from production to consumption and eventual disposal, circular systems treat resources as assets that continuously circulate within the economy.
This shift is not merely operational but structural. Circularity is not an add-on to conventional business practices; it represents a fundamental redesign of how value is generated. Products are no longer viewed as endpoints but as platforms for recurring revenue, cost recovery, and long-term customer engagement. In doing so, circular models begin to decouple economic growth from the continual extraction of virgin raw materials.
In Zimbabwe’s context, this decoupling is not simply an environmental ambition. It is a financial imperative. Reducing dependence on imported inputs, volatile commodity markets, and external financing mechanisms directly addresses some of the most persistent vulnerabilities facing local enterprises.
Types of circular business models
There is no universal blueprint for circular transformation, but three broad strategies are increasingly shaping how firms rethink value creation.
Selling access rather than ownership offers one of the most commercially compelling pathways, particularly in liquidity-constrained markets. Leasing arrangements, pay-per-use systems, and shared asset platforms allow customers to obtain functional value without incurring significant upfront capital costs. For businesses, these models preserve control of valuable assets while generating predictable and recurring revenue streams. In an economy where purchasing power is frequently constrained, reducing ownership barriers can significantly expand effective demand.
Extending product life represents another powerful value lever. Every manufactured product embodies materials, energy, labour, and capital. When products are repaired, maintained, refurbished, or resold, businesses effectively extract additional returns from existing assets. Zimbabwe’s informal economy already demonstrates the viability of lifecycle extension through widespread repair and resale practices. Formal enterprises can capture this value through structured maintenance programmes, refurbishment services, certified spare parts ecosystems, and resale channels that convert depreciation into revenue.
Turning outputs into inputs addresses one of the most persistent inefficiencies in many Zimbabwean industries: waste. Waste rarely disappears; it is typically displaced. Circular models that convert by-products, scrap materials, packaging waste, or energy inefficiencies into productive inputs create cost recovery mechanisms while reducing environmental burdens. In sectors such as agriculture, mining, and manufacturing, waste-to-value strategies can directly enhance margins by monetising resources previously treated as losses.
What are the benefits of circular business models?
The economic benefits of circularity extend beyond cost savings. Circular models create new revenue streams by enabling firms to recapture value from products, components, and materials that would otherwise exit the value chain. Repair services, refurbishment operations, resale platforms, subscription models, and outcome-based pricing structures diversify earnings while reducing dependence on raw material inputs.
Cost efficiency emerges as a natural consequence of resource optimisation. By maximising asset utilisation and minimising waste, businesses reduce production costs, input volatility exposure, and capital replacement pressures. In Zimbabwe’s volatile operating environment, efficiency gains often translate directly into resilience.
Resilience itself may be the most strategically significant advantage. Circular systems inherently reduce supply chain vulnerabilities by lowering reliance on imported materials and volatile external markets. They improve forecasting accuracy, stabilise cash flows through recurring revenues, and mitigate risks associated with resource scarcity and price fluctuations. In environments characterised by uncertainty, resilience becomes indistinguishable from profitability.
Brand value and customer relationships are also reshaped under circular models. Traditional transactional relationships evolve into ongoing engagements centred on service, maintenance, upgrades, and lifecycle management. Businesses that maintain continuous interaction with customers generate deeper loyalty, richer data insights, and more durable revenue streams. In price-sensitive markets, customer retention often delivers greater long-term value than customer acquisition.
Environmental benefits, while sometimes framed as secondary in emerging markets, increasingly carry financial implications. Reduced material extraction lowers emissions and operational risks. Waste elimination reduces regulatory and disposal costs. Resource efficiency improves investor attractiveness, particularly as sustainability-linked capital allocation becomes more prominent globally.
The transformation is happening now
Circular business models are no longer theoretical constructs. Across industries worldwide, firms are demonstrating that circularity can simultaneously enhance profitability, efficiency, and resilience. For Zimbabwean businesses, the relevance of this transition may be even greater.
Zimbabwe’s economy already exhibits deeply circular characteristics through its repair culture, secondary markets, and adaptive informal sector practices. The opportunity lies not in inventing circularity but in formalising, scaling, and strategically monetising behaviours that are already economically embedded.
In volatile environments, value creation is increasingly defined not by producing more but by preserving, extending, and continuously extracting value from existing assets. Circular business models represent a shift from operating under constraint to leveraging constraint as a strategic advantage.
For Zimbabwean enterprises navigating persistent uncertainty, circularity may ultimately prove less a sustainability initiative and more a fundamental profitability strategy.
