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A Critical Review of the Enough Project’s Conflict Minerals Ratings for Electronics « The Elm Consulting Group International The Elm Consulting Group International. During our recent research on the financial impact of consumer sentiment about conflict minerals, we conducted a deep review of the Enough Project’s rankings of electronics companies’ conflict minerals programs. These rankings are frequently referred to in publications and in social media venues such as twitter. As we are auditors by vocation and predilection, we took an in-depth look at the data collection tool/approach, the data itself and interpretation thereof.

Our review found that the rankings Reflect outdated and incomplete information,Appear to contain bias, andAre inconsistent in applying their scoring system. Flawed questions. Several of the questions in the survey are flawed because they ask for solutions and information that did not exist at the time of the survey – and still don’t today. For instance: Question: Has the company published the refiners it uses for 3TG? Biases. Inconsistent answers. Outdated answers. Also, at the end of 2010: Other interesting notes.

CFSI

Mapping_kivu. Unfortunately, due to logistic problems and the delicacy of the issue in the region, IPIS had to abandon the idea of publishing an ethnic map. View the web maps 2. PDF maps The links below will lead you to a number of - slightly overlapping - PDF maps that cover our entire study area. These PDF maps present a series of ‘layers’, containing most of the different features of the web maps mentioned above. To view the PDF maps with the different layers you need Adobe© Reader© version 6.0 or later.

View the PDF maps (legend): - northeast (scale 1:1,000,000) (1,067 kB): cities of Beni and Butembo, territories of Beni and northeastern Lubero - northwest (scale 1:1,000,000) (899 kB): city of Butembo, territories of Lubero (except southern extremity), western Beni and northern Walikale - east: city of Goma, territories of Nyiragongo, Rutshuru, Masisi, eastern Walikale and southern Lubero. Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition. The Extractive Sector and Conflict. As a "frontier activity" often requiring entry into undisturbed ecosystems and traditional subsistence communities, extractive operations for natural resources such as oil, timber or minerals have become increasingly associated with violent conflict.

IISD's work in this area examines the links between the extractive sector and conflict, focusing on the types of interventions that businesses, governments and non-state actors can use proactively to prevent or resolve social tension. Publications Towards the Integration of Conflict Assessment and Prevention in Extractive Industry Practice» Rachel Goldwyn, Jason Switzer, International Alert, IISD, 2004 An analysis of the best corporate practice in political risk assessment, developmental impact assessment and environmental impact assessment as they relate to conflict-sensitivity. Free shopping guide to Laptops & Netbooks, from Ethical Consumer. Jane Turner and Rob Harrison help you navigate your way through all the ethical issues involved in buying a computer. Additional research by Tim Hunt, Leonie Nimmo, Jo Southall and Bryony Moore. The personal computer sits triumphant at the apex of modern consumer capitalism.

It is probably the most complex single item that most of us have in our homes. More than two thousand materials are used in the production of the microchip alone – just one of the many components in each machine.(1) Each of these materials – many of them toxic – will have been mined or processed somewhere on the planet by other businesses. Trying to make ethical decisions amidst all this complexity is a daunting task. Fortunately, in the four years since Ethical Consumer last looked at the computer industry, the number of civil society organisations working to address these issues has increased considerably.

Cultural pessimism? There are three real disadvantages though. The digital divide Shifting power Discover more. Conflict Minerals Company Rankings | RAISE Hope for Congo. E-reader manufacturers and their use of conflict minerals. E-reader manufacturers and their use of conflict minerals According to the Enough Project which campaigns against conflict minerals in eastern Congo, mineral resources are financing multiple armed groups, many of whom use mass rape as a deliberate strategy to intimidate and control local populations, thereby securing control of mines, trading routes, and other strategic areas. There are four main conflict minerals being mined in the Congo: tin, tantalum, tungsten (the 3Ts) and gold.

The Enough Project says that the majority of these minerals eventually wind up in electronic devices and so it is campaigning to get electronic companies to remove conflict minerals from their supply chain. Tin is used as a solder in circuit boards; tantalum goes into capacitors (small components used to store electricity); tungsten is used in the vibrating function of mobile phones; gold is also used by the electronics industry – as a coating for wires. Zero take up Actions New inclusion In our guides. News feed from Ethical Consumer - Conflict-free smelters now available for all four conflict minerals. Feb 13 Written by: 13/02/2014 15:11 Tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold all available from audited smelters The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI), an initiative on conflict minerals of the tech industry association the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), announced that, for the first time, there would be audited conflict-free smelters or refiners for the four identified conflict minerals: tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, representing an important development in the movement to develop a clean minerals trade worldwide.

According to Raise Hope for Congo smelters were the key choke point in the global supply chain for minerals. Their hope was that as more smelters became audited in a stringent manner, there would be fewer and fewer places that smugglers could sell conflict minerals, eventually forcing them to give up. The plan was through incentives a more transparant, clean minerals trade can emerge.