Before the Fair Cobalt Alliance makes sense, the problem does. Here is the short version of why cobalt matters, where it comes from, and why walking away is not the answer.
Cobalt is a metal used in the cathodes of most lithium-ion batteries, the kind that power electric vehicles, phones and grid storage. It improves energy density and stability, which is why demand has climbed with the energy transition.
Most of the world's cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is usually found alongside copper. In 2024 the DRC accounted for nearly three quarters of global supply.
Industrial, mechanised operations run by large companies. The majority of DRC cobalt comes this way.
Informal, labour-intensive digging with hand tools. A minority of output, but a livelihood for well over 150,000 people.
For many families in the cobalt belt, artisanal mining is the most accessible source of cash income available.
Unsupported tunnels, no equipment, buyer-controlled scales and, where poverty bites hardest, child labour.
Cobalt's reputation problem is real. Investigations have traced child-mined cobalt into the supply chains of major electronics and vehicle brands, and research in the copper-cobalt belt finds a meaningful share of children working in or around mines.
But the cause is poverty, not mining itself. Where households have no alternative income, children work and adults take risks. Removing a child at the gate, without changing why they were there, can leave a family poorer and the problem hidden.
This is the backdrop the Fair Cobalt Alliance was created to address: not to deny the problem, but to fix its causes at the source.
Even total disengagement would not end artisanal mining. It would only remove income and oversight.
Cutting ASM out of supply chains could displace hundreds of thousands of workers with no alternative.
Channelled toward responsible production, the world's appetite for cobalt becomes a force for better conditions.
Safer mines, schools and savings groups already exist on the ground. The model works when it is funded.
The Fair Cobalt Alliance turns this argument into action on the ground. Add your organisation.