Minerals: Do you own a conflict phone?

[Ink]

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https://www.androidauthority.com/conflict-minerals-883973/

Your phone has a lot of precious stuff in it, and I don’t just mean your amazing photos. Sourcing the materials inside your device is a complex supply chain task: messy, dangerous, and one that often pushes on ethical boundaries.

Consider diamonds, one of the most sought-after resources in the world. Blood diamonds aren’t just the stuff of movies — they’re a real part of the diamond market and represent an industry every bit as brutal as the 2006 Leonardo DiCaprio film suggests.

Conflict resources are largely unknown to most consumers, but responsible consumerism is a growing movement. As the issue has become more widely known, a growing number of people have started refusing to buy jewellery containing blood diamonds. But it’s not just the diamond market dealing with these growing concerns.

The smartphone industry doesn’t deal in blood diamonds, but many devices use materials and natural resources often just as hotly contested. They’re known as conflict minerals, and learning about them will give you valuable insight into some of the important ethical problems that smartphone manufacturers — and you — face.

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How it all relates to your smartphones
The private sector is the key to responsible sourcing when companies choose to go beyond mandated rules and provide real financial sway in avoiding conflict minerals.

Sustainability in most industries first focuses on removing highly dangerous (and often highly useful) chemicals like asbestos. In electronics, one of the first major pushes was to remove lead from products, along with other problematic or poisonous metals such as nickel, beryllium, and mercury.

Removing conflict minerals from smartphones has been more difficult. All major companies — including Alphabet (Google), Samsung, and Apple — file reports on their efforts to remove conflict minerals from their devices, and many join associations or seek certifications like the Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI).

Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) was formerly Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI).
Responsible Minerals Initiative is helping companies make informed choices about minerals sourcing in their supply chains.

 

[yitworths]

great thread... but whether you like it or not it's political also... anyone who knows history & politics of congo a little bit, can say or understand why it's political... & regarding those big corps' initiatives, it's just facade. They all know from the very first what they are doing & how they are doing... Anyway, great choice of thread... I wasn't actually expecting anything as such from this site...