Green Product Management

Mineral Sources Investigation

Acer understands and agrees that corporations have to take up their social and environmental responsibility while doing business. We also recognize that our responsibilities include the need to promote and influence the social and environmental responsibility performance of our suppliers. To have the greatest impact, we joined the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) in mid 2008 and have since actively participated in the EICC’s initiatives to improve working conditions in the global electronics supply chain. We also require our first-tier suppliers to adhere to the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct and encourage them to take up their corporate responsibilities and to promote adoption of the Code with their suppliers.

Social and environmental problems related to the materials of product parts and to the manufacturing process have received worldwide attention in recent years. The rich mineral resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have fueled one of the world’s deadliest conflicts. We understand that most of our suppliers do not have direct purchasing relationships with mining companies. There are often multiple sources for metals including recycled metal, metal inventories and crude ore. However, we understand we have the opportunity to have a positive impact on this complex issue as an individual company. Thus, we have taken the following actions.

In order to assume our responsibility to educate our suppliers and work with them to meet social and environmental standards, we have expressed our concerns over conflict minerals in the 2009 Acer CSR Supplier Conference to all of Acer’s suppliers and thereby raising our suppliers’ awareness of and attention to the origins of product materials.

We have also delivered to our suppliers our Statement for Materials (Metals) Extraction. It contains our refusal to accept the use of illegally mined minerals and minerals from mines with poor working conditions, and communicates the expectation to our suppliers that they must conduct their operations in a socially and environmentally responsible way and make sure that the materials they are using are conflict-free.

Acer’s Statement for Materials (Metals) Extraction

1. Acer suppliers must conduct their operations in a socially and environmentally responsible way.
2. Acer will not accept illegally mined minerals and minerals from mines with poor working conditions.
3. Acer suppliers should make sure that the materials they are using are conflict free.
4. Acer suppliers should trace the supply chain for cobalt, gold, palladium, tantalum, tin and tungsten in their products to verify the mines of origin.

In 2009, we attended the Multi-Industry Extractives Forum in San Francisco to gain more knowledge of the conflict situation and to begin discussions with other industry members and stakeholders regarding steps that Acer could take to begin influencing change in its supply chain. During the same period, we conducted a survey of the uses, commercial sources, supply chain, and mining background of the cobalt, gold, palladium, tantalum, tin, and tungsten used by our ODM suppliers/assemblers in the end product and also used by our suppliers of batteries and hard disk drives. Along with the survey, we also provided our suppliers with references including the usage, major producers and the consumption in the electronics industry of the minerals in question. The survey took six months and the response rate from our suppliers was over 90%.

The survey indicated gold was sourced mainly from China, South Africa, Australia and Japan, and other countries mentioned included Chile, the U.S.A, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Malaysia and Kazakhstan. They reported China, Malaysia and Indonesia as major tin producers and the U.S.A., Japan and Australia to a lesser extent. The major sources of tantalum are reported as China and Australia while Brazil, Mozambique and Canada are also mentioned. Tungsten, on the other hand, is sourced mainly from China.

We appreciate that our suppliers cooperated with us to investigate and provide information. However, we also encountered problems during our survey, including the uncertainty about the accuracy of the received information as well as the difficulty to validate the information or receive useful feedback from our suppliers due to confidentiality reasons.  We believe that much of this difficulty can be attributed to the lack of coordinated efforts and standardized methods from the larger industry members when approaching the supply chain.

In 2010, we attended the Conflict Materials Forum in Washington DC, facilitated by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and As You Sow. Acer’s main objectives were to learn from the stakeholders in the conflict region, assess the progress of industry members individually and as a group, and to share and evaluate the successes and obstacles encountered by current efforts so we could validate or realign our next steps.

Currently, we believe that actions to address the mining issue will be more effective on a collective basis rather than on an individual basis. Acer is cooperating with the EICC’s Extractive Working Group to survey the mineral sources for the electronics industry and communicate with other organizations and groups that have a stake in the issue. Acer is supporting the development of a smelter validation program to identify those smelters that are sourcing DRC conflict-free minerals. Also, collaborative efforts are being made to determine proper due diligence steps within the supply chain so that Acer can effectively ensure the sourcing of DRC conflict-free minerals from the smelter to its products. In response to the signing of the U.S. Financial Reform Bill (H.R. 4173) into law on July 21, 2010, Acer supports the provisions outlined in the law and will participate collaboratively in the rule making process with other members in the industry through Acer’s memberships in both the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and the EICC.

Acer has committed to collaborate with the EICC, ITI and our suppliers to improve the labor, health and safety, environmental and ethical aspects in the industry, and we will focus on where we are most influential to achieve that goal. We will provide periodic updates of our progress in implementing the above actions at Acer’s global sustainability website.