03-09-2009 Think Green Alliance: Dell & HP Aim to Ensure Mineral Supply Chains Are Conflict-Free

Excerpt from the open letter by Dell, HP and others, published on the Think Green Alliance website:

As the electronic products our companies manufacture do contain these materials [such as tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold], and some of them could potentially originate from conflict regions of the DRC, Dell, HP, Intel and Motorola are jointly hosting a multi-industry forum to help develop transparency, accountability and assurance mechanisms in the supply chain of extracted metals.

This forum, set for Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the BSR conference in San Francisco, aims to help us learn from those who’ve made this journey before and established certification processes for their suppliers. We will hear from those mapping their supply chain down to the mines, and from mining and smelting operations that are conducting business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. We hope this forum will help determine what actions we need to take to move forward on this important issue.

We already expect our suppliers, wherever they operate, to meet our standards for socially and environmentally responsible operations. That said, ensuring that our supply chain does not contribute to human rights violations in the DRC, or any other country, requires cooperation and commitment within every layer of the supply base.