Tracking Conflict Minerals

Ever wonder where the metals in your cell phone came from? What about your laptop? MBA students in Lundquist Professor of Sustainable Management Michael Russo's course in Sustainable Business Development took on the challenge of tracking some of these down, in a real-life consulting project suggested by electronics giant Hewlett-Packard. Their targets were gold, tin, tantalum, and tungsten, dubbed "conflict minerals" because in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere, profits from their mining and sale have been used to finance violent militias and warlords. Soon, a provision of the Dodd-Frank law will require corporations to document where they source these metals. For the students, the project's surprising takeaway was that--though cell phones and laptops get a bad rap--the quantity of the metals used in these devices is relatively small compared to the amount used worldwide each year. In fact, the metals appear in even the most everyday objects. "You're talking about anything from your hair dryer to your electric toothbrush," said Sarah Spring, MBA '13. Ultimately, as Marci McCall, MBA '13, observed, "There isn't one area where you can focus all the attention, it needs to be focused on all areas equally."