Amnesty warns on use of child labour in cobalt mining
Companies ‘not doing enough’ to ensure ethical supply of metal used in batteries
Khodrocar - The world’s largest electronics and electric vehicle companies are not doing enough to ensure the cobalt in batteries they make or supply is not mined by child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Amnesty International.
The human rights group said almost half of the 28 largest companies that use cobalt, including Microsoft, Renault and China’s Huawei, were failing to demonstrate even "minimal” compliance with international due diligence standards. Electric carmakers such as Tesla and BMW also needed to do more to disclose the sources of their cobalt, it said.
"As demand for rechargeable batteries grows, companies have a responsibility to prove that they are not profiting from the misery of miners working in terrible conditions in the DRC,” said Seema Joshi, head of business and human rights at Amnesty.
Demand for cobalt is rising rapidly as the world’s largest carmakers launch mass market electric vehicles that use the metal in their batteries. Cobalt prices have more than doubled over the past year and focus on the supply chain has also grown.
More than half of the world’s supplies of cobalt come from the DRC, sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest nation. As much as 20 per cent is mined by hand and sold to local traders, according to Amnesty. Last year, Amnesty said in a report that children as young as seven are mining cobalt in the DRC.
Most of the metal mined by hand ended up with the Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, supplying battery components to some of the largest battery and electronics companies, including Apple.
In a follow-up report, the human rights group said on Wednesday that it had ranked 29 companies including Huayou that buy from the DRC according to five criteria based on guidance from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
It questioned the companies on whether they had identified human rights risks in their supply chain and if they had taken steps to address them.
Apple performed the best in Amnesty’s ranking, having named its suppliers including Huayou Cobalt and engaged with the Chinese company to address child labour concerns since Amnesty’s 2016 report.
Of the electric carmakers the best performer was BMW, while Daimler and Renault scored the worst. Amnesty said Tesla was "showing signs of potential in light of its human rights investigative practices” but there was a lack of information about how it had assessed the risks in its supply chain.
"Across the board there is a lack of transparency,” the report said. "Companies are not disclosing their assessments of the potential for human rights abuses in their supply chains, or of their suppliers’ own due diligence practices.”
Microsoft told Amnesty it was engaged with all of its battery suppliers to make sure they complied with its Responsible Sourcing of Raw Materials policy.
Daimler said it "does not engage in direct purchasing of cobalt of any kind” and does not purchase directly from the DRC. Renault did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Huawei told Amnesty it carried out "special assessments of 977 suppliers as part of its conflict mineral management programme”.
Tesla said it was committed to "only sourcing responsibly produced materials” and pointed out that its NCA batteries used relatively little cobalt. "On a relative basis, cobalt simply is not that significant to the composition of Tesla’s cell.”
Microsoft said it did not tolerate child labour or hazardous practices in its supply chain and believed the report did not reflect the detailed accounting of its work provided to Amnesty.
"We’ve taken significant steps to further extend and expand efforts on the ground directly aimed at ending child labour related to cobalt, as well as taking actions to address cobalt within our supply chain,” a spokesman said. "There is still more to be done.”
Source: FT
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