Intel and HP Lead Battle Against Conflict Minerals

For the second time, the Enough Project has listed technology companies for their effort to avoid conflict minerals in their products.

The ranking is designed to highlight and reward those companies that take pro-active steps to recognize the problems of conflict minerals originating from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Just like the much more publicized conflict diamonds, conflict minerals cause in-humane working conditions, violence and exploitation.

According to the Enough Project, Intel comes out on top with a score of 60 out of a possible 100. HP follows with 54 and Philips with 48. Other companies that were recognized for auditing their supply chain, participate in industry-wide initiatives against conflict minerals and help Congo to clean up their trade environment include Sandisk (48), AMD (44), RIM (42), Acer (40), dell (40), Apple (38), Microsoft (38), Motorola (35), Nokia (35), and Panasonic (33).

Companies such as IBM, LG, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and Lenovo are further behind and are in the beginning phases of considering a stronger commitment against conflict minerals. The Enough Project chastised Canon, Nikon, Sharp, HTC and especially Nintendo as the lowest ranked company for doing "next to nothing" to avoid conflict minerals. According to the project organizers, Nintendo has been unresponsive to repeated outreach efforts, did not investigate its supply chains, and does not participate in a program "to source clean minerals from Congo."

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