![]() Though these reports vary in how much or little information they include, all the ones we looked at for gaming companies have several common elements in how they gather and share this information from their complex supply chains.Įssentially, companies obtain minerals used in their products from suppliers, who in turn obtain them either directly or through a longer supply chain from smelters and refiners (SORs) located around the world.īroadly, companies have two pieces of information that they need to learn about each SOR. However, companies in the United States are required under the Dodd-Frank Act to make a public reporting with the SEC every year of just how close to being conflict-free they can reasonably determine their supply chains are. The simple answer is, at least at the moment, they can't. ![]() How do companies guarantee ethical sourcing? Supply chain complexity is one reason for this another is that a good chunk of these minerals come from certain areas (especially the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding countries) where ongoing civil wars and outside violent groups profiting from mining operations make it difficult both to discern whether or not a source is conflict-free and, if it is, to keep it that way. The bad news is that companies don't always know whether they're using those ethical sources or not. The good news is that ethical sources for these minerals exist that don't fund war and human rights violations. The four most common conflict minerals are tungsten, tin, tantalum, and gold (collectively referred to as 3TG), and unfortunately, they're all frequently found in products most consumers use every day - including electronics such as gaming hardware. This could mean directly funding armies or rebel groups, making use of slave labor for mining operations, or having illegal taxes, bribery, or coercion by armed groups touch the supply chain in some way, whether deliberately or not. "Conflict minerals" is a blanket term for minerals that are mined in conflict zones around the world, the acquisition, sale, transport, or movement of which ultimately funds or perpetuates the conflict. Having covered these issues in past years, it's time once more to take a look at the games industry and see how hardware and accessory manufacturers improved or not on making sure the latest gaming platforms didn't fund armed conflict and slave labor in 2018. Sony answered by saying it would "demand" a response next year - something the company also said last year when the same thing happened, and the year before that, to no significant improvement.Īpple and Sony are two ends of what turns out to be a pretty broad spectrum of caring about conflict minerals in the games industry. When Sony asked its business partners for 2018 whether their operations were funding human rights abuses, over 50 of them decided not to respond. Apple answered by halting all business with them. ![]() When Apple asked its business partners for 2018 whether their operations were funding human rights abuses, five of them decided not to respond.
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