Addressing Forced Labor and Conflict Minerals in the Supply Chain: An Overview of EU's 'Conflict Minerals' Regulation and ComplyMarket's Solutions for Due Diligence
The new EU 'Conflict Minerals' Regulation (2017/821) addresses the use of forced labor in mining minerals in politically unstable areas. These minerals, such as tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold, are often sold to fund illegal activities such as purchasing weapons and can find their way into our mobile phones, cars, and jewelry.
EU importers of these minerals are required to check what they purchase to ensure they have not been produced in a way that funds conflict or other related illegal practices. The regulation stipulates that importers follow a five-step framework that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has laid out in a document called 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas' (OECD Guidance). These steps include:
- Establishing strong company management systems
- Identifying and assessing risk in the supply chain
- Designing and implementing a strategy to respond to identified risks
- Carrying out an independent third-party audit of supply chain due diligence
- Supporting reporting annually on supply chain due diligence
How ComplyMarket can help you:
ComplyMarket offers the ComplyDoC, an intelligent IT and first ever open source code cloud solution for Supply Chain sustainability, chemical & product compliance Management to collect information from suppliers. ComplyDoC can assist with the following:
- Establishing strong company management systems
- Identifying and assessing risk in the supply chain
- Designing and implementing a strategy to respond to identified risks
- Carrying out an independent third-party audit of supply chain due diligence
- Supporting reporting annually on supply chain due diligence.