To address this challenge, the mining sector must adopt more circular, low‑impact business models, with MaaS offering a promising solution by retaining metal ownership and incentivising efficient use, recovery and recycling.
MaaS offers a transformative approach to metals circularity, scaling secondary metals supply to meet the clean energy transition. Instead of selling metal outright, producers retain ownership and provide customers with rights to use the metal. This ‘servitisation’ model creates incentives to optimise metal use, improve recovery and recycling, minimise environmental harm, and share economic value more equitably with mineral-rich nations. MaaS could help overcome cultural and commercial inertia within mining while unlocking innovation and investment opportunities across the value chain.
The Carbon Trust, together with the CCSI, is developing the research, analysis, and stakeholder engagement needed to test the viability of MaaS. This work includes evaluating economic benefits, exploring low-risk business models, identifying financing and policy enablers, and shaping practical pathways for adoption. Over 70 miners, metals producers, metals traders, recyclers, OEMs, project developers, academics, and ecosystem stakeholders have engaged with the discussion.
Outputs of our strategy workshop
In July 2025, the Carbon Trust and CCSI held a strategy workshop with stakeholders from the metals value chain, including mining, recycling, trading, manufacturing, finance, and policy. Together we examined how MaaS might unlock the untapped economic value of secondary metals, support circular systems change, and reduce pressure on primary supply.
Metals as a service: A bankable circular business model
In December 2025, the Carbon Trust and CCSI co-hosted a webinar ‘Metals as a service: A bankable circular business model’. We explored the benefits of applying MaaS to the metal value chains, including:
- Real life case studies
- The economic and operational benefits of using a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to efficiently offer MaaS to the market
- Applying MaaS for steel use in the wind value chain
- Digital traceability options for investor confidence
- Economic analysis highlighting the positive business case for MaaS including risk analyses.
The Carbon Trust and Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI)
In May 2026, the Carbon Trust and Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) launched a new report, ‘Metals as service: A strategic and investable circular business model for the wind energy industry and beyond’.
The report sets out how Metals as a service (MaaS) can transform the metals system from a linear, extraction dependent model into a circular, investable asset class—unlocking new pathways to deliver the energy transition.
We explore how MaaS works in practice, including:
- A new ownership model – using Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to retain ownership of metals, enabling continuous reuse and recovery across multiple lifecycles
- The financial case for MaaS – converting metal purchases into predictable operating costs while creating long-term, securitisable revenue streams
- Building a ‘Metals Bank’ – aggregating primary and secondary supply to improve resilience and reduce reliance on constrained extraction markets
- Digital traceability and risk management – using tools such as Digital Product Passports to provide transparency, performance data, and investor confidence
- Pathways to scale – including contract design, innovative financing structures, and bond-based securitisation to attract institutional capital
With a deep dive into the wind sector, the report shows how MaaS can reduce upfront costs, improve supply security, and align incentives across the value chain - from producers and OEMs to recyclers and investors. Ultimately, MaaS positions circularity as a source of competitive advantage, turning metals into long-term, income-generating assets and enabling scalable, bankable circularity.
