Conflict minerals continue to fuel violence in central Africa, but e-gear manufacturers are making progress. Intel and HP are the leaders in recent ratings, which show most have improved.

The Enough Project rated over 20 companies in August 2012 on a 100% scale. Intel (60%) and HP (54%) lead. All told, 13 companies scored 30% or better. "These companies have taken proactive steps to trace and audit their supply chains, pushed for some aspects of legislation, exercised leadership in industry-wide efforts, started to help Congo develop a clean trade. But they can still dig deeper in their supply chains and outreach."

Five - Canon, Nikon, Sharp, HTC, Nintendo - scored 8% or less. "These companies have done next to nothing to shift their practices toward conflict-free from Congo. They are not members of industry-wide efforts, have not taken the proper steps to investigate their supply chains, have said nothing about legislation, and are not actively engaged with other stakeholders."

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) followed up a September 2012 report Greening ICT supply chains – Survey on conflict minerals due diligence initiatives. It adds to the Enough Project report with a citation of Motorola Solutions' Solutions for Hope Project, "which embodies a closed supply chain of minerals from within DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo]. For the pilot project, Motorola Solutions effectively shortened its supply chain for tantalum so that it only includes the mine operator (a mining co-op in the initial phase), a smelter, a component manufacturer (called AVX) and the company itself...In March 2012, AVX published a press release saying that it had 'delivered its first conflict-free capacitors to Motorola'.”

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Image courtesy of Enough Project