PIONEERS WANTED

Taking responsibility for the entire supply chain isn’t easy for many companies. Especially SMEs often lack the necessary insights and options.

We’re looking for pioneers in a pilot project with the goal of adding responsibly mined copper to a product supply chain. By doing so we hope to minimize social and environmental risks und contribute to a gradual improvement of conditions in copper mining.

WHY COPPER?

Metal resources such as coppers are the beginning of many supply chains and are essential in daily life and the sustainable transition. However, the conditions under which they were produced are invisible to the purchaser.

Most copper ores are mined in South America, especially in Chile. There, in some of the driest regions on Earth, mining consumes large amounts of water. Toxins are introduced to the environment and unique habitats are destroyed. There is a high risk that ores mined in these regions are connected to the displacement of indigenous communities and violent suppression of protests.

To counter environmental damage and human rights violations in mining, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) has been established. It has created a mining standard based on transparent 3rd party audits. Its unique multi-stakeholder approach considers the interests of all parties and allows them to take part in decisionmaking.

The aim of our pilot project is to introduce material from a mine audited to the IRMA standard into a copper supply chain, thus establishing a connection between the end product and the mining site.

WHAT IS OUR AIM?

Our project contributes to a broader resource transformation – a step on the path towards responsible mining and usage of raw materials.

Currently, manufacturers of cables and electronic devices are showing an interest in sourcing more sustainable raw materials due to the general increase in awareness of sustainability issues and increasing regulation. We want to build on this interest and strengthen it by creating low-threshold access to raw materials mined in accordance with IRMA standards.

On the one hand, this increases the demand and thus the market value of the IRMA Chain of Custody certificates, which should make IRMA auditing economically attractive for other raw material producers and thus indirectly lead to an improvement in mining conditions at other locations. On the other hand, the certificates create a link - albeit a symbolic one - between the end product and raw material extraction, which was previously not the case due to the complex copper supply chain.

A truly comprehensive raw material transition can only be achieved through the introduction of ever stricter legal standards. The use of Book&Claim certificates has the potential to establish itself as best practice for manufacturers who process copper in their products and thus wish to address their material sustainability risks and fulfill their human rights due diligence obligations. This also provides arguments and examples at a political level to raise the required standards.