I was invited to speak at Asia–Europe Foundation’s annual ENVForum conference. In 2023, the theme of the conference was ‘SMEs at the Heart of Circular Transition’. I presented observations from my PhD research during the session on agri-food SMEs. The conference brought together policymakers, government officials, entrepreneurs, and academics from Asia and Europe, creating a unique platform for exchanging ideas and finding solutions to bottlenecks. It was a pleasure to be able to share insights from my own research and deliberate with participants about their relevance to their work.