From waste to worth: An explorative typology of service- and product-oriented business models for urban biowaste valorization

Urban biowaste valorization is a promising pathway for the circular bioeconomy, yet the business models supporting it remain fragile and poorly understood. Research has mainly emphasized product-oriented biomass valorization, while service-based models have received less attention. This paper examines how urban biowaste is integrated into value creation, delivery and capture mechanisms, and whether the product/service distinction captures their diversity. Based on an exploratory qualitative study of ten French initiatives, it identifies three business model families (product-oriented, service-oriented and hybrid) and seven types: value-added product transformation; biowaste trading; product valorization supporting a social mission; core paid waste-management services; ancillary biowaste services; community and non-profit waste services; and integrated product-service approaches. Product-oriented models mainly capture value through marketable outputs, service-oriented models through collection, logistics, regulatory compliance and stakeholder support, and hybrid models through both mechanisms. Across these families, biowaste also creates relational and marketing value through customer engagement and CSR narratives, and social and territorial value through inclusion, education, community building and local resource loops. Environmental value cuts across these mechanisms through waste diversion, resource substitution and reintegration into material, energy or agronomic cycles. The study shows that the product/service distinction is useful but insufficient and contributes a multidimensional typology. It also complements the biomass value pyramid with a business model perspective accounting for product, service, relational, marketing, social and territorial forms of value.