A scheme to monitor and improve
artisanal cobalt mines in Democratic Republic of Congo will reach four times
the number of sites it currently covers by 2023 after a
deal between RCS Global and the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI).
Cobalt, a by-product of copper or
nickel, is used to make lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones and
electric cars. Currently about two-thirds of it comes out the DRC. However, due
to the region’s intense poverty and the mineral’s soaring price, thousands of
impoverished Congolese have flocked to the cobalt rich areas to secure an
income.
Some cobalt sourced in the country has come as a result under scrutiny for its potential use of child labour as well as due to the health and safety risks unsupervised, informal mining brings.
Germany’s RCS Global, which audits
supply chains, launched the Better Mining initiative in 2018, collecting data
on cobalt mine sites in Congo and giving mine operators “corrective action”
plans when practices were found to be unsafe.
When done correctly, artisanal mining can be an ethical source of low-cost, high-grade cobalt and a key mechanism in keeping the market balanced during times of supply shortage.
Partnering with RMI, will allow the
Berlin-based organization to double the sites it monitors from three to six
this year, and to 12 or more sites by 2023, the companies said in the statement.
The final goal is to help artisanal
miners by opening the market for them. Western mining companies have tried
distancing themselves from artisanal cobalt supply to forego the risk of
inadvertently using raw materials sourced from child labour, which remains
rampant in central Africa.
Tesla, Google and Apple were among the firms sued by a human rights group in December about their alleged involvement in abusive mining practices in the DRC.
RCS-RMI joint action seeks to prove
that artisanal cobalt mining can
be a responsibly-managed, viable source of the metal, used in the batteries
that power electric vehicles, smartphones and computers.
“We are determined to unlock the
demand for responsibly produced ASM cobalt,” Leah Butler, vice president of the
Responsible Business Alliance, said.
“We encourage companies along the value chain to actively engage in this
effort.”
According to Amnesty International, children as young as seven have been found scavenging for rocks containing cobalt in the DRC. The group also claims to have evidence that the cobalt those miners dig has been entering the supply chains of some of the world’s biggest brands.
Traditionally, artisanal miners
have sold their ore to local cooperatives, which then sell it to local
merchants and traders. They, in turn, sell to international traders or
operating mines with established transport links and that cobalt ends up being
exported mostly to China.
Those, and other allegations have
put pressure on companies and on traders. The London Metal Exchange (LME), the
world’s biggest market for industrial metals, has plans to ban metal tainted by human rights abuses. The
initiative to ensure responsible sourcing originally had 2022 as the
deadline, but LME will now wait until 2025.
In May 2017, The European Union
passed a regulation to stop mine workers being abused and conflict minerals
being exported to the EU. The requirement to ensure mineral imports are
responsibly sourced will become effective on Jan. 1, 2021.