Benedikt Sobotka: We have a responsibility towards children in countries where us extracts unprocessed trash to the batteries industry.
Hydrocarbons remain the main way to obtain energy in 2019. Nevertheless, people in civilized world are actually increasingly choosing electric cars, as petrol and diesel engines emit fractional co2 www.businessfirstonline.co.uk into the atmosphere and pollute the air with nitrogen and sulphur compounds. The number of electric cars will are as long as 130 million towards the end of 2030 and each home and office may use smart devices ran by batteries. Oslo, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Paris, London, Madrid already declared that they are going to ban all vehicles focusing on petrol or diesel fuel in central areas. The way the situation is going, batteries will replace the environmentally damaging coal and oil as fuel sources.
Minerals for batteries has to be extracted and processed with robust safety standards, proper working conditions, norms for responsible extraction and business ethics planned.
Global social responsibility
Take, as an example, cobalt. Over 2 / 3 of cobalt are extracted inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cobalt mining brings a lot of employment for those all around DRC but a substantial percentage could possibly be tainted by illegal child labour.
In 2017, world leading companies including BASF, Enel and Volkswagen met at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos to debate business ethics in minerals extraction for that manufacture of batteries. As a result, the businesses gathered to found the Global Battery Alliance, with Eurasian Resources Group as being a founding member, geared towards prohibiting the application of child labour and promoting battery recycling to improve the sustainability from the industry.
The CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, Benedikt Sobotka reiterated the business’s persistence for help tackle child labour within the Democratic Republic in the Congo. He hopes that with the Alliance and collaboration between major companies, international organisations and civil society, the illegal involvement of children in mining in the battery supply chain is going to be addressed.
Eurasian Resources Group supports children inside the DRC
Through longstanding partnerships including with the Good Shepherd Sisters and Pact, Eurasian Resources Group concentrates on helping tackle child labour and strengthen child protection norms.
In 2018 and early 2019, ERG continued to compliment greater than 10,000 students through its educational initiatives inside the DRC.
Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, holds that the global battery sector should confer benefits to its participants over the value chain including children and local communities inside the DRC.
