Benedikt Sobotka: We have a responsibility towards children in countries where we extracts raw materials for the batteries industry.
Hydrocarbons remain the key supply of energy in 2019. Nevertheless, people in western world have become increasingly choosing electric cars, as petrol and diesel engines emit skin tightening and Sobotka Benedikt in to the atmosphere and pollute mid-air with nitrogen and sulphur compounds. The number of electric cars will are as long as 130 million in the end of 2030 each home and office will probably use smart devices ran by batteries. Oslo, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Paris, London, Madrid already declared that they’ll ban all vehicles taking care of petrol or diesel fuel in central areas. The way things are going, batteries will replace the environmentally damaging coal and oil as fuel sources.
Minerals for batteries have to be extracted and processed with robust safety standards, proper working conditions, norms for responsible extraction and business ethics in your mind.
Global social responsibility
Take, as an illustration, cobalt. Over two thirds of cobalt are extracted in the Democratic Republic with the Congo. Cobalt mining brings lots of employment for those throughout DRC but a large percentage could possibly be tainted by illegal child labour.
In 2017, world leading companies including BASF, Enel and Volkswagen met in the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos to go over business ethics in minerals extraction to the manufacture of batteries. As a result, the firms gathered to found the Global Battery Alliance, with Eurasian Resources Group as being a founding member, directed at prohibiting using child labour and promoting battery recycling to raise the sustainability with the industry.
The CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, Benedikt Sobotka reiterated the business’s persistence for help tackle child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He hopes that from the Alliance and collaboration between major companies, international organisations and civil society, the illegal involvement of children in mining in the battery supply chain will probably be addressed.
Eurasian Resources Group supports children in the DRC
Through longstanding partnerships including while using 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 a lot more than 10,000 students through its educational initiatives in the DRC.
Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, holds that this global battery sector should confer benefits to its participants over the value chain including children and local communities inside the DRC.