Kuala Lampur, May 25 -- The world economy is in the grip of a severe supply shock. The conflict in the Middle East has revealed a terrifying truth: the global economic order is structurally incapable of absorbing shocks to the stuff we need - energy, materials, and components. The conventional wisdom is to "de-risk" by reshoring manufacturing or friend-shoring supply chains. But this is a fool's errand. It is expensive, inflationary, and merely swaps one set of geopolitical vulnerabilities for another. If we are serious about insulating the global economy from the volatility of supply shocks, we must embrace the circular economy - not as a green niche, but as the central pillar of economic security.

To understand why the circular economy...