The era of electric vehicles (EV) is racing into existence. By 2035 over half of global passenger vehicle sales will be electric, according to BloombergNEF. Government policies and regulations around the world will only accelerate this change.

But beneath this transition lies a dirty underbelly. Electric vehicle batteries require huge amounts of cobalt mined at industrial cobalt mines in countries such as the DRC.

Whilst these mining companies claim to produce ‘clean’ minerals, new research by organisations such as Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) indicate a very troubling picture, where the acceleration of EV battery production is leading directly to shocking human rights abuses, corruption, discrimination, and environmental harm.

The time to challenge this reality and produce a truly ‘ethical battery’ is now. Join us for a special webinar exploring the solutions that are required to power the transport revolution in a just and ethical way.

Please note this is an online webinar taking place on Restream. Log-in details will be shared with you after registration.

Speakers:

Anneke Van Woudenberg is the Executive Director of RAID, which she joined in March 2017. Previously she was the Deputy Africa Director at Human Rights Watch where for 14 years she led in-depth factfinding on human rights violations across sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Africa’s Great Lakes region. She has testified at international war crimes trials, briefed the UN Security Council, the US Congress and the British and European parliaments, and is a frequent commentator in the international press. Anneke has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Fiona Lloyd-Davies is an award-winning filmmaker and photojournalist who has been documenting human rights issues in areas of conflict since 1992, including in Bosnia, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lloyd-Davies’ work combines journalism with a strong visual style that she learned as a graduate of the Royal College of Art. She films much of her own work, drawing out intensely personal and difficult stories from people often at their most vulnerable. She brings the viewer into the subject’s life to render a deeply drawn portrait, while preserving the dignity and integrity of their story. She works out of her own company, Studio 9 Films Ltd.

Caspar Rawles is Senior Analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence – an independent publishing company specialising in price and data collection and analysis of cobalt, nickel, lithium, and graphite for the lithium-ion battery supply chain. Caspar has a long and varied history in commodities having studied Geology at the University of Birmingham in the UK, moving on to work in the field as an exploration geologist in West Africa, to finally trading commodity markets in the financial world in London before joining Benchmark. Caspar joined Benchmark in 2016 and is responsible for the coverage of cobalt, cathodes and battery megafactories, he developed Benchmark’s battery focussed Cobalt Price Assessment as well as the Lithium-Ion Battery Megafactory Assessment.

Henry Sanderson is the executive editor at benchmark mineral intelligence and former Commodities Correspondent for the Financial Times. He has written a range of stories on commodities and mining, with a focus on the impact of the electric car and renewable energy, and has travelled to China, the DRC and Chile, penning features and producing a feature film about Chile’s copper industry. Now based in London, he previously worked as a Beijing-based reporter for Bloomberg News since April 2010. Prior to that, he was a reporter for the Associated Press in Beijing and Dow Jones in New York. He is a graduate of the University of Leeds (with a bachelor’s in Chinese and English literature) and Columbia University (with a master’s in East Asian Studies). His interests are in China, natural resources, electric vehicles, and energy storage.

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