Microsoft declined to reply to Reuters' questions about the visit or about its strategy on artisanal cobalt. In the report, Microsoft said that it is "committed to responsible and ethical sourcing".
"We are continuing to work on this problem. It's an issue that will take a coalition to solve," the $1.9 trillion computer manufacturer and software company said.
As consumers become more concerned that the products they buy are tainted by poor working conditions or child labour, global tech firms and carmakers have been using less mined cobalt in their batteries by increasing recycling and switching to lower-cobalt chemistries. Apple, for example, aims to massively reduce its use of all materials sourced directly from mines, and has said that 13% of the cobalt shipped in its products in 2021 came from recycling.
The issues around artisanal mining are an existential threat to the cobalt industry, according to Marina Demidova, head of communications at the Cobalt Institute. "If we get this wrong, cobalt probably will cease to be in batteries in 20 years' time." So far, attempts to formalise the industry have fallen flat. Trafigura and Congo mining firm Chemaf's formalisation scheme at Mutoshi, launched in 2018, ended abruptly in March 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic. Now diggers work in deep tunnels with no personal protective equipment, and women miners said they make less money than before, according to the report.
Entreprise Generale du Cobalt, a unit of state mining company Gecamines, was granted a monopoly on artisanal cobalt by government decree. EGC signed a supply deal with Trafigura in November 2020 and published a sourcing standard, but has yet to start buying cobalt due to political wrangling. "Greater stakeholder engagement, including from global buyers, will help to overcome this impasse," Baumann-Pauly said. (Reporting by Helen Reid and Clara Denina; Editing by Stephen Coates)
