![]() ![]() This is why things take time, and also why so much more still needs to be done: Artisanal miners need legal status and productive mine sites, expertise and infrastructure to build safer mines, protective equipment, and fair compensation for their labor. ![]() From the start, Fairphone’s approach has been to foster progressive improvement, to take one step after the other, to listen to and bring along everyone. ![]() So, we need to ask ourselves, as an industry: If we distance ourselves from artisanal- and small-scale miners, do we help ourselves, or do we help them? For Fairphone it is clear: we want to engage and be part of the solution, rather than disengage to have a ‘clean west’ – which we believe is akin to greenwashing.Ī fair transition to an inclusive and green economy means engaging with and investing in the artisanal- and small-scale mining sector in DRC, and it means sticking to it over the long term. Artisanal cobalt miners can earn a significant income (depending on seasonality and prices), in a context where poverty is widespread and few other gainful employment opportunities are available, especially for those with little formal education or job prospects, those who have lost their land due to climate change or other land uses (including industrial mining), or those who have migrated to the area fleeing from conflict.Īt Fairphone, we are therefore convinced that artisanal mining can be transformed into responsible and safe small- and medium-scale enterprises over time, creating a multiplier effect in the local economy. Instead, artisanal mining is a way for the local population to benefit from the increasing demand of critical minerals such as cobalt, needed for the energy transition. Demonizing the miners will harm rather than help because banning or excluding the most vulnerable and marginalized in our industry from global supply chains will push them out of their livelihood. There are no simple or quick solutions to formalize and improve artisanal mining. With the FCA, we have set out to support the reform of an entire sector. But profound and lasting change won’t happen overnight. Artisanal miners in DRC produce about 13% of cobalt globally, providing income for up to 100,000 people ( depending on seasonality and commodity prices ), and the DRC (combining both artisanal and industrial production) accounts for about 70% of global cobalt production in total. The FCA also established a holistic program to address and remediate child labor in and around mine sites, and is enabling mining communities to diversify their economic opportunities.īeyond addressing these risks and harsh conditions that are still a reality in our sectors’ supply chain, the reason why we engage with artisanal miners in the DRC is also that this sector has a huge potential to help develop the region and reduce poverty. The FCA brings together industry, civil society and government and has been working to improve working conditions and health and safety at the Kamilombe mine site. With the FCA, we choose to directly engage at the mines on the ground in DRC – because we believe we have a responsibility to invest in and contribute to improvements that are needed to positively change the conditions for these miners and their communities. In the last seven years, not sufficient progress was made in addressing these issues.Īnd it’s precisely because of these extreme issues that we co-founded the Fair Cobalt Alliance (FCA) in 2020. At Fairphone, we are the first to say that the working conditions in artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC are still not acceptable, that miners are still exposed to dangers and don’t have protective equipment, and that there are still children working in hazardous and damaging environments at mine sites. Seven years after Amnesty International’s report “ This is what we die for ”, cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is again in the headlines, with a focus on the continuous dangers and challenges connected to artisanal cobalt mining, and with companies being pointed out for using cobalt from these mines while not doing enough to support improvement.Ĭobalt is a mineral used in our Fairphone battery, and is a crucial material for the global transition to green energy, including in the electronics and automotive industries amongst others. A call upon the industry to engage more – not less! – in ASM cobalt mining. ![]()
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