Two years after its initial rankings, activists Enough! have issued their updated rankings on electronics companies’ progress on conflict minerals. Even CNN picked up this up and reported it on the front page of CNN.com. A quick review of the summary report indicates that Enough appears to have addressed some of the points from our critical review of the initial 2010 rankings. However, our comments concerning the three flawed questions remain substantially valid. Although we have not yet analyzed the detailed responses behind the summary report (those responses are available here), we plan to do so soon. Similarly as we look even further ahead, we anticipate updating our own report on the financial impact of Enough’s rankings.
Read more →During our recent research on the financial impact of consumer sentiment about conflict minerals, we conducted a deep review of the Enough Project’s rankings of electronics companies’ conflict minerals programs. These rankings are frequently referred to in publications and in social media venues such as twitter. As we are auditors by vocation and predilection, we took an in-depth look at the data collection tool/approach, the data itself and interpretation thereof. Our review found that the rankings Reflect outdated and incomplete information, Appear to contain bias, and Are inconsistent in applying their scoring system. Flawed questions. Several of the questions in the survey are flawed because they ask for solutions and information that did not exist at the time of the survey – and still don’t today. For instance: Question: Has the company published the refiners it uses for 3TG? This fails to recognize the existence of legally-binding non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements that are common between suppliers, especially in the electronics industry. Even today, concerns about confidentiality are unresolved and no company has published a list of its 3TG refiners. Confidentiality agreements are many times necessary to protect key intellectual property and valuable trade secrets related to the products manufactured and similar
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