Buy Nothing Day – VS – Black Friday

Buy Nothing Day is an international day of protest against consumerism that takes place on November 29^th, 2019. It is celebrated on the same day as “Black Friday”, a consumption record every year!

• 77% of people around the world know what Black Friday is, and 47% is willing to participate in the shopping spree this year.
• Shoppers around the world will spend on average 167€ during Black Friday sales, with clothes, electronics and shoes on mind.

©black-friday.global

The consumption related to Black Friday is increasing every year and the event is lasting longer and longer (now the duration is actually of about a week long). Companies are pushing more and more people into over-consumption.

Electronics are the second favourite products targeted on Black Friday: smartphones, laptops and other ICT products are bought all over the world. This puts a strong pressure on both the environment and the workers of both assembly factories and metal mines where the elements composing electronic devices are extracted (mostly metals). To extract the elements composing the ICT devices bought on black Friday human rights are violated, people’s health is affected and nature is being polluted by the ICT industry.

The extraction of metals always entails major social and environmental impacts and fuel conflicts. In factories, workers have to assemble the products for long hours and are forced into working nights at peaks of orders such as Black Friday. Some migrants’ workers are even obligated to remain at the factory by employers who confiscate their passports for blackmailing purposes. Once the products are out of use, they become e-waste. According to the World Economic Forum, each year more than 50 million tons of e-waste is produced worldwide and only 20% is properly recycled (35% in the European Union). The situation is predicted to get worse in the coming years if we do not reduce our consumption of electronic devices, learn to repair them, share them and recycled them when their life is really over.

©World Economic forum

The economic system in which we live and the big international companies that rule it created our never-ending urge to consume more and more, especially ICT devices. This way of living is completely unsustainable and puts our planet under serious pressure.

What can we do?

Buy Nothing day – Europe is not only about changing our consumption habits for a few hours, we need to become conscious consumers.

Improving our way of life and consumption habits is necessary if we want to maintain life on Earth: consuming less and producing less waste is crucial in this fight.

Instead of consuming, we stand for repairing, refurbishing, reusing, recycling, sharing and reducing our consumption (more info here). And this consumption we try to redirect towards locally owned, community-based businesses to somewhat diminish our impact.

Let’s ask ourselves the right questions: Do we really need that new gadget or the latest version of our favourite smartphone brand? Why would we buy a new product if we still have one that works? If our favourite ICT device is broken, how can we fix it ourselves? Are there companies that sell products that are easily repairable and recyclable? Why not buy second-hand?

Consumers are not the only responsible for the situation, together we can reach out to companies and the industry to oblige them to produce products in a more sustainable and fair way.

Join us on Buy Nothing Day – Europe and help us spread the message, we can be more than passive consumers.

From fellow responsible consumers…

The countdown is OVER!!!

The Make ICT Fair Project

This campaign is part of the Make ICT Fair project that wants to improve the lives and livelihoods for workers and communities associated with ICT supply chains, particularly in the Global South. Through research, awareness raising, lobbying towards public institutions for more sustainable and fair public procurement policies on ICT and lobbying for better legislation within the EU, the partners try to reach that goal. More information about the project you can find here.

The partners: CATAPA, CEE Bankwatch, Electronics Watch, ICLEI, Le Monde Diplomatique, People & Planet, SETEM Catalunya, Südwind, Swedwatch, Towards Sustainability Action, University of Edinburgh

This project is organised with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication is the sole responsibility of the Make ICT Fair project and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.

This project is run by the non-profit organization CATAPA vzw, the umbrella organization of Flemish environmental groups Bond Beter Leefmilieu (Society for a Better Environment) and Ondernemers voor Ondernemers (Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs) and aims at improving the sustainability of ICT procurement and reuse policies in Flanders. Since 2005, CATAPA has been dealing with the socio-ecological impact of mining. Fair ICT Flanders will run for three years and is financed by the Flemish government.

Context

The production of ICT devices such as smartphones, computers and laptops has a substantial impact on people and the environment. The extraction of the metals and minerals needed for these devices often involves human rights’ violations and ecological destruction; and assembling laptops and smartphones takes place in low-wage factories where labour rights are ignored. The useful life of these products is very short and ICT design is currently not aimed at reusing the smaller parts they are composed of, which results in a gigantic volume of e-waste. Besides, nearly 4 % of global greenhouse gas emissions originate from the ICT sector.

Target group

The project is aimed at big ICT consumers in Flanders. Institutes of higher education, local governments and enterprises might play a considerable role in influencing ICT companies to make their supply chain more sustainable in a well-structured way. The use of social and ecological criteria in procurement procedures is therefore essential. Sustainable ICT procurement policy may function as an important leverage for a better world.

Objectives

The project Fair ICT Flanders intends to make companies, governments and institutes of higher education take tangible steps to develop sustainable ICT procurement and reuse policies. The ultimate goal is to achieve a more sustainable future and better labour and living conditions of communities impacted by the extractive and ICT production sectors in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Methodology

Based on a variety of working practices, the project will offer an intensive guidance trajectory to pilot institutions. Learning platforms, webinars and toolboxes will be developed in order to guide procurement officers within their organizations. Both the shared learning process and the exchange of good practices among the various institutions will inspire future ICT policy.

Will your organization lead the way? 

Will your organization lead the way towards sustainability? Does it wish to keep up with the standards of the future? Will your organization become more environmentally conscious in its procurement  procedures while also using resources sparingly? Is your organization willing to reduce its impact on the environment and climate? If so, engage in the project as a pilot participant and take advantage of three years’ intensive support. By doing so you will be able to take tangible steps in making your procurement policy more sustainable while focusing on current electronics.

Are you interested and/or do you have questions?

Don’t hesitate to contact Kim Claes: kim.claes@catapa.be.

The Flemish Government shall not be held responsible for the contents of this publication.

Near-zero-waste recycling of low-grade sulphidic mining waste for critical-metal, mineral and construction raw-material production in a circular economy.

The issue of mining waste in the EU

Source: Historic mining site of Rio Tinto (Huelva, Spain) by Alberto Vázquez Ruiz

The mining of non-ferrous metals such as copper, lead, zinc, nickel, antimony and cbalt and precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum produces the largest volume of metal-containing extractive waste in Europe with approx. 900 million tonnes/year of presently unusable material, and about 29% of all the waste produced in the EU-28. Today, most mines only extract a little fraction of metals from the ore, discarding the rest as enormous volumes of mining tailings left in waste-storage facilities. These installations have a limited safe lifespan and pose a serious threat to the environment and local people due to their risks (e.g. dam break, landslide, geomembrane break), compromising the present and future generations that must inherit the cost of management and permanent monitoring. This is particularly the case for sulphidic tailings, which often cause acid-mine drainage.

‘Recycling’ of mining waste as a better practise

Source: NEMO project

In its 2016 Raw Materials Scoreboard report, the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials launched a “call to arms” to transform the “extractive-waste problem” into a “resource-recovery opportunity”. In response to this call, the NEMO project takes up the challenge of developing new ways to valorise sulphidic tailings, through the recovery of valuable metals and critical raw materials (Co, REEs/Sc, Mg). NEMO takes the lead in respecting the zero-waste principles of the EC’s Circular Economy Action Plan (2015) in the mining sector. The project will also learn new techniques to concentrate the hazardous elements (As, Cd) and remove the sulphur in the form of sulphate salts (e.g. Na, K, Mg), leaving the residual, clean mineral fraction to be used as a raw material for the mass production of cement, concrete and construction products. The result would be a drastic reduction in waste to just 5% (still to be stored) of its original (fresh tailings) volume, leading to far fewer risks for storage, and with the additional benefit of no acid-mine drainage possibility. An improvement that every mine site should implement!

CATAPA in an EU ‘Horizon 2020’ Innovation Action

CATAPA is a small partner in the NEMO interdisciplinary consortium, including 6 industrial partners (4 engineering, 1 machine manufacturing & 1 construction materials company), 4 research institutes, 2 universities and 2 mining companies (the implementation cases: Sotkamo mine in Finland, and Las Cruces mine in Spain). NEMO has four categories of objectives: technological, economic, environmental and social. CATAPA is involved in the achievement of the latter. NEMO states the will to achieve an open dialogue and enhance cooperation between all stakeholders (mining sector, local communities, authorities and NGO’s) to implement co-design and co-monitoring systems, so CATAPA will be working for 4 years (2018-2022) to ensure that the voice of locals will be known and taken into account by the consortium in its implementation of these new technologies on the mine sites.

Note (12/02/2019):

Las Cruces case is no longer part of the project because Cobre Las Cruces S.A.U. (subsidiary of First Quantum Minerals Ltd., based in Canada) withdrew from the NEMO Consortium on January 29th 2019 after a major mining accident occured in its operation in the early morning of the 23rd, when a large amount of its mining waste deposits (dried tailings) suddenly precipitated inside its open-pit through a land slippage. This event demonstrates once again the real need to find a solution to the constant generation of polluting waste by mining activities for the benefit of the whole society and our planet. For more information visit this blog or read the article from Yes To Life No To Mining.

Source: Ecologistas en Acción Sevilla (Spain).

Note (18/10/2022):

A trailer of a video documentary series titled “Responsible Mining in Europe: A new paradigm to counter climate change” was released on LinkedIn on Tuesday, 18 October 2022, carrying a non-authorised disclaimer of CATAPA and the logo of the NEMO project. CATAPA clarifies that it did -and does- not support this video series. Before the trailer was publicly aired, CATAPA had already started the process of requesting the correction of that mistake. Although the promoters of the video trailer amended their error on the same day, it had been online for a few hours. Linking CATAPA and the NEMO project with those videos was done against CATAPA’s will and without its consent.

The NEMO project develops, demonstrates and exploits new ways to valorise and use sulphidic mining waste. Especifically, the project is a response to the 2016 EIP Raw Materials “call to arms” to transform the “extractive-waste problem” into a “resource-recovery opportunity” in the understanding that mining tailings still contain valuable and critical metals, and that mining waste could be a source for these metals and the cleaned inert fraction reused as construction materials. Promoting new mining, regardless of whether it is called “responsible”, “green” or “sustainable”, is out of the NEMO project scope and objectives. CATAPA disagrees with the message of the video documentary series.

Source: Image from the main documentary video by SIM² (KU Leuven).

The Make ICT Fair project began in November of 2017, when a consortium of 11 European organizations joined forces with the ultimate goal of improving the lives and livelihoods of people affected by ICT supply chains. Make ICT Fair was an European funded project (subsidized by the DEAR-programme) that ended in January 2021.

Why do we need to Make ICT Fair? 

Because most ICT isn’t fair. ICT refers to electronic products that we use on a daily basis, such as laptops and smartphones. The production process of these devices is marked by human right violations and ecological disasters.

First of all, electronics contain a high amount of metals. Smartphones for example contain more than 40 different metals. These metals need to be extracted from the earth. This mainly occurs through large-scale mining projects, creating enormous ecological impacts such as; the dehydration of lakes, rivers and the earth, the contamination of soil and water with heavy metals and toxic substances, deforestation and biodiversity loss. Again, this creates several social impacts such as (forced) migration, loss of income due to degradation of agricultural land, diseases due to contamination of drinking water, criminalization of protest and human rights defenders, conflicts and corruption. Next to this, the ICT production phase also has a dark side. In many ICT factories, which are located mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe, labour conditions are far from ideal. ICT factory workers are required to work excessive hours for low wages in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. And, if that isn’t enough, the amount of e-waste discarded by the global population is only increasing annually, with severe social and ecological consequences. This is the result of the linear production model: our electronics are not designed to be easily repairable or recyclable.

There are many reasons why working towards a fairer ICT production and consumption model is not  simple. Firstly, the ICT supply chain is not transparent and is very fragmented. Firstly, the ICT supply chain is not transparent and is very fragmented. It is easy for companies to avoid taking responsibility for other stages of the supply chain. The entire production and consumption model needs to be scrutinized and redesigned. 

 In this way it’s quite easy for companies to not take their responsibility for what happens in a previous stage of the supply chain. The whole production and consumption model is in need of scrutinization and redesigning.

The whole supply chain is in desperate need of a change. We need to Make ICT Fair. 

Here you can read more about the issues within the ICT supply chain.

How did we Make ICT Fairer?

The Make ICT Fair consortium utilised four different strategies to make ICT Fair:

1.   Raising awareness in Europe on the issues within the ICT Supply chain

First of all, with the Make ICT Fair project we wanted to meet the urgent need to increase awareness of European citizens as to how our electronics are produced, drawing attention to the labour conditions and environmental impacts. 

This is a very important first step, because often people aren’t aware of the story of their phones before they purchase them in the store. Within the Make ICT Fair project, the consortium increased awareness of European citizens on the impact of our ICT by; creatingsocial media campaigns and sharing articles, creating educational material,  training activists and  organizing public actions, conferences, workshops, Speaker Tours, guest lectures, documentary screenings and several other educational events. 

Raising awareness in numbers:

• We reached over 150 million European citizens through press and media work and social media campaigns, linking their own consumption to the challenges and negative impacts associated with global ICT supply chains (mining and manufacturing) and the interdependencies of the EU and the Global South.
• Project partners actively engaged 350,000 citizens with training sessions, street actions, congresses, speaker tours and seminars. These activities were successful in building awareness, skills, and knowledge among trained activists and the general public, supporting them in active citizenship from a local to a national level to create change in ICT supply chains.
• Large-scale events designed to reach a broader audience were organising in collaboration with multiple partners, including; 
  • SETEM organized three sessions of the Mobile Social Congress, with input and speakers from other Make ICT Fair partners. The main goals of the congress were to reflect on the current production and consumption ICT model that generates serious human rights violations and environmental consequences, and the potential of existing ethical consumption alternatives – issues that were not discussed at the annual Mobile World Congress that took place simultaneously in Barcelona. 
  • Three Academic Speaker Tours were set up by CATAPA. Three speakers from the Global South travelled to Europe to give guest lectures in universities and ran several other events about mining issues in their countries. They traveled through Belgium, but also told their story during activities organised by Bankwatch in Bulgaria, by Le Monde Diplomatique in Poland and by TSA in Hungary. 

People & Planet coordinated Power Shift three years in a row – a multiple day training series for young people focused on strengthening their activist and campaigning skills. Activists from SETEM, TSA, CATAPA, Bankwatch and Le Monde Diplomatique participated in these training sessions.

2.   Promoting fair public procurement as a tool for positive change

Government, regional authorities and universities are large-scale consumers of electronics products such as computers, laptops and tablets. Within the EU, one out of five laptops is bought by the public sector. Consequently, as a major consumer, the public sector as a whole has considerable leverage. If the entirety of the public sector were to join forces, it could utilise this leverage to force the industry to implement structural improvements and higher standards.

Therefore, Make ICT Fair targeted public sector buyers, encouraging them to integrate sustainability criteria within their ICT product procurement tenders. At the same time, monitoring systems were strengthened across the supply chain.

Promoting fair public procurement in numbers: 

• During the project 331 institutions were encouraged by project partners to affiliate themselves with Electronics Watch and make work of fairer public procurement policies. 
• Expert roundtables, conferences, seminars, and webinars reached 1,700 public procurers. 
• Training sessions were conducted to strengthen monitoring partners in manufacturing and mining regions. These trainings were organised by Electronics Watch and CATAPA and focused on the worker-driven monitoring methodology for monitoring partners in the mining and the manufacturing sector. 
• ICLEI and Electronics Watch developed tender models, provided advice, guidance and expert briefing to public procurers. Six pilot tenders and five published case studies inspired local administrations and Procura+ Interest Group participants to make work of their own procurement. 
• A database was set up to make the connection between 60 brands, 176 factories and 56 procurers. 

3.   Performing research to detect issues within the ICT supply chain and increase transparency

The ICT supply chain is very complex and untransparent. That’s why we performed research on the ICT supply chain to detect certain issues such as human rights violations and to gain more insight into the complex metal and component tiers. 

This is a selection of the research produced within the framework of the Make ICT Fair project: 

• Copper with a cost – A report produced by Swedwatch on the human rights and environmental risks in the mineral supply chains of ICT, focusing on a case study from Zambia
• Forced labour behind your screen – Research performed by Danwatch on behalf of SETEM on the bad working situations of migrant ICT factories in Malaysia. 
• Linking the Bolivian minerals to the European Industry – research carried out by CATAPA that tracks the supply chain of the metal Indium (important for touchscreens in smartphones), from Bolivian cooperative mines to the European Industry. 

You can find an overview of all the research carried out within the Make ICT Fair project on this page of the University of Edinburgh. There you can also find a collection of articles produced by the Make ICT Far project titled ‘Human rights risks in the ICT supply chain’.

4.   Advocating for the integration of fairness and sustainability aspects in legislation related to ICT

Legislation concerning the ICT supply chain is developed at both the European and national level. Make ICT Fair partners analyzed and closely monitored such legislation to push for the integration of sustainability aspects. The EU’s multilateral development banks’ investments were closely monitored and lobbied to adhere to best practices. 

More specifically, the Make ICT Fair consortium made policy recommendations regarding these subjects; 

• Adopting rules on Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence 
• Ensure Multilateral Development Banks implement Human Rights and Environment Due Diligence
• Push for the EU to upgrade its public procurement policies
• Ensure that EU policies regarding circular electronics and ICT lead to fairer value chains
• Inclusion of social aspects in the Sustainable Products Initiative

To work on the implementation of these recommendations, Make ICT Fair partners held frequent meetings with EU decision makers, organizing lobby events in the European Parliament (such as the European Parliament ‘Make ICT Fair’ Breakfast with the goal of raising awareness of human rights violations within ICT supply chains) and formed the Make ICT Fair Friends group out of existing decision makers. 

For this, the consortium was supported by consultant Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO). 

Here you can read more about EU policy recommendations Make ICT Fair partners were and are continuing to work on. 

Some Make ICT Fair partners also pressured their national governments to raise ICT supply chain issues and improve legislation. For example, TSA launched a campaign and a petition to push for legislation in Hungary that would extend the obligatory guarantee period for ICT products. 

To be continued…

During the three years of the Make ICT Fair project, eleven partners took steps towards a fairer ICT supply chain. However, lots of work must still be done. From 2021 onwards the consortium will continue to work together on different levels to Make ICT Fair; 

• Dialogue and collaboration between partners will continue . Supported by a contracted consultant, the consortium will continue to meet regularly and will keep on advocating for fairer policies by targeting EU level policy makers. 
• Make ICT Fair partners will continue to focus on the topic of ICT individually within their organizations. For some partners,  the impact of ICT will continue to play a significant role in their educational and awareness-raising offer. Others will continue to perform lobby activities or carry out research regarding the subject. Several organizations also joined forces for smaller projects and will continue to focus on their specific accomplishments. 
• The Make ICT Fair consortium will be on the lookout for a follow-up project to continue the work outlined above. 

The project partners

This project was organised with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication is the sole responsibility of CATAPA and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.