Human rights violations and environmental degradation caused by the mining of minerals in Africa and Indonesia have emerged as key global issues.
TSST strongly supports the ban on conflict minerals and takes the ethical sourcing of minerals very seriously.
The company remains committed to collaborating with suppliers and relevant organizations to build a safe working environment in its supply chain and ensure its customers that all products are produced ethically and sustainably.
TSST is working with the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and similar organizations to identify industry-wide solutions to the issue of ethical minerals sourcing.
The company seeks to increase awareness of conflict minerals and encourages smelters in its supply chain to participate in conflict-free sourcing certification programs.
Further, as a member of the EICC, TSST collaborates with other member companies to develop countermeasures to this issue.
TSST aims to provide consumers with products that go through a legitimate and ethical distribution process, conducting thorough investigations to ensure conflict minerals are not used.
TSST urges suppliers to shift to certified smelters, while recommending uncertified smelters join certification programs.
TSST is also forming a council consisting of members from the government, industry and related organizations to identify the impact of the U.S. law on the Korean market and identify potential courses of action.
By creating this council, TSST is sharing best practices and trends among various stakeholders and establishing common ground to address concerns.
Child labor, sexual harassment and various human rights violations occur in the mineral extraction process in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring African countries.
The profits from illegally extracted minerals are then used to support armed groups.
In 2010, the U.S. government passed a law which defined tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold produced in the region as four conflict minerals and mandated companies to disclose their use of the minerals.
In accordance with the law, all publicly-traded companies in the U.S. must report the use of these minerals in the products they manufacture or sell to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by May 2014.
