Please subscribe to our mailing list to receive updates about the campaign. Sign up over on the left now!
Write to your MP and MEP
Write to your MP and MEP to ask them to encourage the UK government, as a major power and an international aid donor, to exert pressure on mining and phone companies, the Congolese governments and other governments in the region, so that they abide by the due diligence standards set out by the UN and the OECD.
Download the template letter, edit it as you will, add the salutation to your representative and your details, and send it off.
The WriteToThem website has information about how to identify and contact your MP, MEP, member of devolved administration, local councillor, or even Lord. You can also follow a link to TheyWorkForYou to find out more about your MP’s interests. It always helps to know whether they have spoken on an issue and how they have voted in the past, in order to target and personalise your communication.
Write to phone companies
We are working on a template letter to phone companies asking them to use conflict-free minerals in their supply-chains. In the meantime, here is a petition to sign and some information about the other companies with the biggest market share.
Sign this petition asking Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, to “make a conflict-free product that includes minerals from eastern Congo”. See also Apple’s policy on Sourcing conflict-free materials, and write to them (click on the company name for a template letter) to encourage them to keep going further.
Samsung has taken some steps to endeavour that their mobile phones do not contain materials derived from illegally mined Congolese coltan. Unfortunately, this involves avoiding the Congo altogether. Ask Samsung (click on the company name for a template letter) to make a conflict-free product that includes minerals from the Congo.
Nokia appears to be leading the field in participating in the OECD Due Diligence for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas and joining the Solutions for Hope initiative to enable validated conflict-free minerals from the Congo to be used in its products. Write to Nokia (click on the company name for a template letter) to applaud their actions so far, and encourage them to keep going further.
The Blackberry manufacturer is not far behind Nokia in participating in the OECD Due Diligence, and ahead in the Enough Project’s rankings. Write to RIM (click on the company name for a template letter) to applaud their actions so far, and encourage them to keep going further.
HTC has no obvious supply chain policy, and they are near the bottom of the Enough Project’s rankings. Ask HTC (click on the company name for a template letter) to develop a policy on conflict-free supply chain, and to make a conflict-free product that includes minerals from the Congo.
Run a campaign in your own organisation
Conflict-Free St Andrews Campaign
Watch this video and be inspired by the powerful demand from students at the University of St Andrews in Scotland to the technology companies that supply their university: “It’s time for a conflict free guarantee!”
The University of Exeter became part of the Conflict Free Campus Initiative in 2012. The University powers-that-be joined the Student’s Guild and included a deceleration about conflict minerals in their ethical procurement legislation.
Conflict Free Campus Initiative
If St Andrew’s, Exeter and National Union of Students can do it, so can you!