June 2nd, 2026 | Virtual | 9–10 a.m. ET, 6.30–7.30 p.m. IST, 3:00-4.00 pm CET
Recycling and circularity are emerging as a strategic frontier in critical mineral policy. The volume of spent batteries, retired solar panels, decommissioned wind turbines, and electronic waste is growing rapidly, and with it the opportunity to recover high-value minerals at a fraction of the environmental and geopolitical cost of primary extraction. Recycled minerals can reduce pressure on ecologically sensitive mining frontiers, lower emissions intensity, shorten supply chains, and critically reduce exposure to the concentrated geographies and chokepoints that dominate primary supply today.
Yet the global circular economy for critical minerals is still in its infancy. Collection systems are fragmented, recycling infrastructure is concentrated in a handful of countries, informal e-waste flows often move from North to South under conditions that capture little value and impose significant environmental and health costs on receiving communities, and policy frameworks rarely treat secondary supply as a first-order strategic resource. The result is a paradox: the Global South is often the ultimate destination for the world's end-of-life products, yet rarely the beneficiary of the mineral value those products contain. For Global South countries, this moment is both an opportunity and a risk. Many host the world's most critical mineral deposits and many also receive significant volumes of e-waste and end-of-life clean energy equipment.
This webinar, the second in the Council for Critical Minerals Development in the Global South's Critical Mineral Collaboration Series focuses on whether circularity represents a genuine pathway to a more equitable, resilient, and lower-risk critical mineral system brings together leading voices on circular economy policy, recycling technology, industrial strategy, and South-South cooperation to explore what a truly circular critical mineral system would look like and what it would take for Global South countries to help build it.
Objectives
This webinar aims to shift the conversation on critical minerals from an extraction-first framing toward a circular, full-lifecycle approach to mineral security. Specifically, it will:
