Most people are aware of “Blood Diamonds” mainly due to the 2006 movie “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but you may not be familiar with section 1502 for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act concerning Conflict Minerals.
Perhaps you are curious as to what blood diamonds and conflict minerals have in common, and that would be that both are used to finance conflict within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and specified adjoining countries (Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia).
The Dodd-Frank Act requires certain corporations to report their use of “Conflict Minerals” in the manufacture of their product. Conflict Minerals generally refer to Columbite-Tantalite, also known as coltan (from which tantalum is derived); cassiterite (tin); gold; wolframite (tungsten); or their derivatives; or any other mineral or its derivatives determined by the Secretary of State to be financing conflict.
Of these minerals, Samtec must only concern itself with gold and tin, and report the origins of these minerals.
Verification / Reporting
While the reporting of the minerals only fall, legally, on publicly held companies, Samtec does assist our customers in gathering this information since many of them are publicly traded. For Samtec, the reporting is fairly simple as we obtain all of our gold and tin from two different sources. All of gold that Samtec uses for plating is from recycled jewelry, and the tin is purchased from a smelter in the USA.
Samtec has also surveyed its suppliers to verify that its products are DRC Conflict-Free, and also require them to fill out the Conflict Minerals Reporting Template (CMRT). The CMRT is a form that was created by the EICC and GeSI as a standard reporting tool across industries. This form has our suppliers verify that, based on “reasonable and good faith inquiry,”
- The supplier does not use conflict minerals from the DRC or adjoining countries in any product supplied to Samtec
- The mined mineral streams originate in Malaysia, South America, Central America, Mexico, the United States, and / or Canada
- They maintain a policy against sourcing any material in the DRC
As with many other social / environmental concerns, Samtec has official statements and certifications listed on its website: https://www.samtec.com/support/compliance. Conflict Minerals is just one the of the areas that Samtec has committed to report in order to be a better corporate citizen, and increase the human rights and labor conditions around the globe.
If you would like to obtain a copy of Samtec’s CMRT file then please see the link below:
http://suddendocs.samtec.com/environmental_compliance/certifications/rmi_cmrt5-10_samtec.xlsx
