At Nokia, we work hard to anticipate risk, demonstrate company values, enhance our governance practices, increase employee satisfaction, and look after the environment and communities where we do business. We expect the companies in our supplier network to take a similar ethical business approach and to demonstrate progress and achievements in these areas as well as in educating and overseeing the practices of their own suppliers.

Our aim is to ensure that environmental, ethical, and health and safety issues, as well as labor practices, are not separate add-on features, but are embedded within all our sourcing processes, including supplier selection and relationship development. This section provides information on our requirements, supplier performance and support we provide.

As a company, Nokia does not buy raw materials directly but we are concerned about poor practices at some mine operations around the world and we recognize that we have the responsibility to promote environmental and social improvements conditions in our supply chain. Mining activities that benefit militant groups are unacceptable.

We have been looking into these issues for some years, trying to ensure that our supply chain of all materials is sourced in legal and ethical ways. It's currently a major challenge to trace many metals back to their original sources as it involves thousands of companies and changes in the way the mining industry works. Due to the complexity in the way that metals are produced and sold, ores from many different sources can be combined to make the final materials resulting in no or limited traceability. To make further progress in addressing this requires industry-level action both amongst electronic companies and the mining industry, and Nokia has been actively participating in these discussions.

Nokia became aware of the potential link between mining of Tantalum and financing of the conflict in the DRC in 2001 and took action immediately.

Tantalum is a material used in many consumer electronics products. The mobile phone industry uses a very small amount of the world’s total supply of Tantalum. DRC is one of the places where Tantalum, or rather Coltan, one of the ores that it comes from is naturally found and mined. The country only accounts for a very small amount of the world’s supply of this material, but it can be found in the east of the country where there is conflict, leading to concerns that this Tantalum may be mined under conditions breaching human rights or sold to fund war and illegal activity.

As soon as we became aware of this issue we began requiring suppliers of capacitors used in our mobile phones to confirm they do not source this material from the conflict areas of DRC. This is checked on an ongoing basis. The DRC provides a tiny amount of the world’s source of Tantalum. The vast majority of it is mined in other places around the world including Brazil, Canada, Russia, China and a number of other countries in Central Africa.

More recently the company has been working with suppliers of other minerals, such as Cobalt and Tin, to improve transparency of the supply chain and understand how standards can be promoted.

For example, DRC supplies 40% of the world supply of Cobalt, a material used in batteries. This substance is found in the south of the country, away from the conflict zone and is mined legally by many large, well established companies.

For many years now, we have been driving action and awareness of ethical standards with our own suppliers and within the wider electronics industry. For example, we have rigorous health and safety, environmental and labor standards that all of our suppliers must meet, and we require them to apply the same to their own suppliers.

Before agreeing to work with a supplier we ensure that these standards are met, and we visit a number of suppliers on an ongoing basis to review standards. We also work with suppliers on training and support to help them implement and improve standards.

If we find that standards are not being met we do not walk away but work with that supplier to address the issues and in so doing help to raise overall standards.

We welcome further public debate and action in this area if it helps to drive further improvements.

Significant action is being taken through the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, of which Nokia is a member, and the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC). These groups have conducted extensive research into the key challenges surrounding the supply of metals, the ability to trace and track the sources of metal used in electronic products and the industry’s ability to influence conditions.

The results of these studies have been shared with various organizations and NGOs who were consulted on the next steps for the industry. Further action is now being taken to try and trace the supply of three metals, Cobalt, Tin and Tantalum, back to their original source. This will include the mining industry and other experts. The results will help inform further discussions on the obstacles of tracing metals and how this can be improved.

We are committed to continuing our efforts in solving issues around mineral sourcing and local health, safety, environmental, and labor standards.