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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Contracts that exclude ASM to avoid these risks and costs in their operating environment.Politics and bureaucracy slow progressThe weakness of the DRC government has impeded progress. The government launched its Responsible Sourcing Standards for artisanal cobalt production in 2021 and created the Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC), a new state entity to regulate the buying and selling of artisanal cobalt. It seeks to ensure that only artisanal cobalt extracted in accordance with the standards can be shipped out of the country. But to date, they exist only on paper, and the EGC has not begun to operate, hampered by political and bureaucratic problems.Because of a temporary oversupply of cobalt, artisanal miners have also started digging for copper on the same ASM sites. This will require the expansion of responsible sourcing standards to include both cobalt and copper.Thinking about an MBA?Considering applying for an MBA? Get expert advice from admissions officers, alumni and others with our six-week newsletter course: MBA 101. Sign up here.European governments are enacting various regulations on the sourcing of cobalt, such as the new German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, which requires companies doing business in Germany to address labour rights issues throughout their supply chains. The EU is developing similar requirements for all 27 member states.Pressure is likely to increase as more electric vehicles come onto the market — partly because the EU and other governments are demanding the phasing out of those with combustion engines. Yet activists argue that companies such as Glencore and large western auto and electronics businesses are still failing to take the stringent, effective measures needed to ensure basic human rights standards in the ASMs.Instead, they have joined various industry-led initiatives such as the Global Battery Alliance, the Fair Cobalt Alliance and the Responsible Minerals Initiative, which express concerns about child labour and mine safety, but do not require the participating companies to engage directly in formalising artisanal mining, for example by bringing it within their own business operations. Questions raisedRead the articles below and consider the questions:• Artisanal mining: the struggle to clean up a murky industry• Cobalt Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo• China’s roleShould businesses in the cobalt supply chain, such as automakers and electronic companies, seek to address the human rights risks in artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC regardless of whether they directly or indirectly procure material from the country?How should these companies respond to EU regulation of global labour supply chains?How should companies collaborate to develop mine safety and child labour standards at artisanal mining sites? To what extent should they involve Chinese-owned companies?What steps does the DRC government need to take to strengthen its regulatory framework for ASM cobalt? What can western
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