Volkswagen Joins IRMA: Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance
Photo credit: Volkswagen
Initiative for responsible mining assurance also known as IRMA is an alliance of enterprises, mining companies and non-profit organizations. Their number one goal is to clear standards for improved practices in industrial mining. Volkswagen pledged to gradually implement the IRMA’s standards in its own supply chain. These standards will cover a range of issues, including working health, safety, and environmental protection. Volkswagen is looking forward to working alongside IRMA as they leverage their significant global reach to advance more responsible mining practices. IRMA is an association of non-governmental organizations, labor unions, affected communities, investors, mining companies, and purchasers of raw material. They have over 50 diverse members, as IRMA continues to put in the effort to develop and establish meticulous standards for responsible extraction of raw materials in mining.
“Standards are all the more effective the more consistently they are defined, and the more partners adhere to them. IRMA brings together all the important players.” As stated by Murat Aksel, Member of the Board for Procurement at the Volkswagen Group.
As Volkswagen continues to go electric, their ambitious electrification strategy has set itself on a path to become a future climate-neutral mobility provider. The battery electric vehicle has become the most efficient way to combine climate protection and individual mobility. Electrification comes with high demands such as responsible sourcing particularly in the extraction of battery raw materials like cobalt, lithium, nickel, and graphite. Volkswagen Code of conduct duty bound to all its business partners is to comply with environmental and social criteria with the upmost importance of strict exclusion of child labor. Volkswagen focuses on the implementation of comprehensive standards in mining and joining IRMA was an important step towards that direction.
“The path to transparent and sustainable supply chains leads directly to the mine. That’s why we welcome the establishment of clear rules. Such standards are all the more effective the more consistently they are defined, and the more partners adhere to them. IRMA brings together all the important players: The raw material suppliers, the raw material buyers, workers’ representatives, civil society forces, investors, and independent experts,” explains the Volkswagen Group’s Board Member for Purchasing, Murat Aksel.
Since 2006, IRMA established the implementation of best practice social and environmental standards for mining sectors globally. The standards include the protection of human and community rights, the exclusion of corruption, health protection for workers and affected communities, for example there will be groundwater protection and age checks at every entrance to the mines. Volkswagen has been the first automotive company to ever report publicly about the group-wide measures for responsible sourcing of 16 raw materials including cobalt, nickel, graphite, lithium, tantalum, aluminum, natural rubber, and leather. By joining IRMA, Volkswagen will establish a foundation and provide a model for responsible development of additional mines in the United States. Interested in finding out more about Volkswagen efforts?
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