Inside nearly every piece of technology that we rely on—from our laptops and tablets to cars and airplanes—are the minerals tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold.
However, for nearly two decades, the mining of some of these minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been linked to the funding of armed groups waging a civil war in the country, and it has had tragic human rights consequences. As a result, the minerals have collectively been termed “conflict minerals.”
Our goal at HP is to use conflict-free minerals in our products. This is a big and complicated goal, but, more importantly, it’s an urgent and worthy one.
HP has been working to address this issue since 2007, when we helped establish the Conflict Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI), which developed the electronic industry’s approach to sourcing conflict-free minerals. This approach involves three key elements:
