Assess the risks in your cobalt supply chain

‘Clean’ Cobalt: Let’s Engage in a Real Dialogue with Those Most Affected

When companies source minerals from high-risk regions, they must assess the risks within their own supply chains. However, in the cobalt sector, downstream companies seem to be more concerned with assessing… others’ business.

How did we get here?

In 2016, international organizations and media raised the alarm about the appalling working conditions in artisanal cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a crucial resource for electric vehicle batteries. Since then, car manufacturers have supported various pilot projects in the artisanal sector—while simultaneously denying that they use this same artisanal cobalt.

In reality, the vast majority of Congolese cobalt comes from the industrial sector. Yet, industrial mining operations receive far less attention from the automotive industry. This is despite major issues in the industrial sector, including high-level corruption reported by Resource Matters in 2019, forced evictions in Kolwezi documented by Amnesty International and the Initiative for Good Governance and Human Rights in 2023, and water pollution exposed by RAID and Afrewatch in 2024.

Despite these problems, supply chain actors have been slow to react, while local communities continue to bear the consequences. That is why Resource Matters and its partners are calling on companies to examine their entire supply chain—including industrial suppliers—to identify the risks that most concern local communities and take concrete steps to mitigate these risks. Only then can cobalt sourcing truly be considered “clean.”