Europe’s circular economy conversation has too often been framed as an environmental imperative. The strategic reality is sharper than that. With cobalt recycling rates at 22%, nickel at 16%, neodymium at just 1% and lithium effectively at zero, Europe is sitting on a significant and largely untapped secondary supply base — one that could meaningfully reduce import dependency, buffer against geopolitical shocks, and anchor value-added processing capacity on European soil. 

In a global trade environment where access to primary supply is increasingly contested, circularity is not a sustainability add-on — it is a competitive lever, and one where European industry, innovation and regulation are genuinely well-positioned to lead. But unlocking that potential requires more than recycling infrastructure. It demands design-for-recovery commitments from downstream manufacturers, clear market signals, bankable business models, and a regulatory environment that treats secondary materials as a strategic resource rather than a waste management challenge. This session brings together voices from across the value chain — mining, processing, recycling, and industry — to make the case for circularity as strategic depth, and to tackle the enablement question head-on: what will it take for Europe’s circular materials economy to move from ambition to industrial scale?