Rating: Is this an issue the industry should be taking seriously?
It’s not every day that you get to converse with a real life poet but they do have a nasty habit of asking really searching questions. And Fran Lock was no exception when she asked GoMo News whether or not it was possible to purchase a smartphone which was genuinely conflict (materials) free (CF). It’s over a year since Nicolas Kristof wrote in his column here about ‘blood phones’ and we don’t appear to have made much progress in this direction. Given that all the leading producers of smartphones have been singled out by those campaigning against the use of components in electronic devices (including smartphones), it raises the question – should handset vendors be treating this whole issue more seriously?In a nutshell, pressure groups are opposed to the use of components made from minerals purchased from war zones (conflict areas) such as the Congo.
It’s pretty heavy duty stuff since the Congo is a key supplier of tantalum which is used to make electrical capacitors in mobile phones. It’s the sale of ores like tantalum which funds the combatants in the Congo.
The alternative would be to use tantalum from Australia and so the protestors want manufacturers of electronic goods to check their supply chains and ethically source their components.
In the list of key companies which the Center for American Progress was the public to pressurise, you have virtually all the key smartphone makers.
Apple, Dell, HP, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic (Matsushita), RIM, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson are all named here.
Only HTC and Google have seemed to escape their wrath. But HTC was named in this Android Forums listing here.
So what is being done about it? Well, specialist consultancies have sprung up such as Conflictminerals.co.uk which offer to help manufacturers properly audit their supply chains.
Source: iphoneproj2011
Apple – who protesters have targeted in particular – has made some moves towards transparency having published an annual ‘Supplier Responsibility Progress’ report in 2011 which referenced the conflict issue.
This is, in part, a reaction to a pressure group called the Yes Men which pulled a stunt of advertising a spoof iPhone 4 CF where the CF actually stood for Conflict Free.
Apple was not amused as you can read in this blog called the iphoneproj2011.
There’s a great quote from an unnamed Motorola spokesperson who said, “If the goal is to stop the flow of money to illegal armed groups then, like stopping the flow of water in a river, the dam must be built all the way across.”
So what’s our answer for Fran Lock? Well, currently the only way out is to buy a refurbished smartphone because the warlords have already been paid for their conflict ores once and purchasing it won’t send any more dollars their way.
