This Benori webinar highlights how globalization, financial-market pressure for perpetual growth, and complex, offshored supply chains have structurally pulled economies away from traditional, local circular practices. Panelists contrast frontrunner regions like the EU, Japan, and China—using subsidies, laws, and circular strategies—with laggards where policy, infrastructure, and incentives remain weak or fragmented. They explore plastics treaties, EPR-style mechanisms, reverse logistics, and metal recycling (aluminium, copper, e‑waste) as practical pathways, stressing that credible metrics, auditor verification, and investor willingness to reward “circular growth” are essential to make circularity scalable and financially attractive