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Nintendo Ranks Last In Conflict Minerals Report

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-blood-for-1up-mushrooms dept.

derekmead writes "A new report by the Enough Project, an arm of the Center for American Progress, shows that companies like Intel, Apple and Microsoft have been successfully scaling back their use of conflict minerals in their products. Other companies have been less helpful. Out of the 24 companies surveyed and ranked based on their use of conflict minerals, Nintendo came in dead last, having made no effort to ensure that its products weren't funding guerrilla warfare in Africa. 'Nintendo is, I believe, the only company that has basically refused to acknowledge the issue or demonstrate they are making any sort of effort on it,' said Sasha Lezhnev from the Enough Project. 'And this is despite a good two years of trying to get in contact with them.'"

7 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Good reason not to care about the report by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you formally score someone 0/10 points on measure X just because they don't want to talk to you about X, then your assessment is pretty much worthless.

    1. Re:Good reason not to care about the report by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's also a report from an organization trying to push their own "certification" program, which in the corporate world means "pay us and give us significant influence over you or we'll do our best to make everyone hate you". If they actually wanted to help they'd be working on the actual supply chains, not trying to strong-arm big companies.

    2. Re:Good reason not to care about the report by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, it's more like "It's ridiculous that they gave me a zero for a class grade and they're trying to tell everyone in the world, I wasn't even enrolled at the school!"

    3. Re:Good reason not to care about the report by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      So, this is a "carbon credits" type scam? Go Nintendo! :)

  2. Re:They exploit European characters also by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That just means they're open-minded and sensitive to other cultures and are willing to adapt to a global economy. There's no exploitation, quite the opposite, they should be applauded for using characters that go beyond their own borders.

  3. More importantly... by raehl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's wasted effort. Minerals are fungible commodities. Choosing not to buy minerals from a particular source doesn't affect anything, as they just end up being sold to someone else for the same price.

    About the only thing efforts like this are good for is PR and raising prices. Programs like this don't have any tangible impact in the conflict areas.

    --
    paintball
    1. Re:More importantly... by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It isn't as if the locals ran their own mines. Most were probably simple farmers, fisherman, etc. Removing this money will take the weapons out of the hands of criminals. No more, no less.

      See Gershwin's law.

      These people worked at the local mines, no matter who owned them, and up to 90% of them were legitimately owned, not controlled by a warlord. Now the workers have had their livelihood yanked from under them, and one of the few remaining options not to starve is to become a fighter.

      And "taking the weapons out of the hands of criminals" does nothing to solve the problem. Getting fewer guns doesn't mean the wars will cease - these guys kill, maim and rape with spears and knives -- it just takes much longer.

      Again, this does absolutely nothing to shorten the wars, just prolonging them. And making some westerners feel good about themselves.