WHEREAS: Numerous reports have shown that the mining of cobalt, a key component in EV batteries, is heavily dependent on child labor. Findings include:



•
About 70% of the global cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).1



•
Cobalt mining in the DRC is often done by children – as many as 40,000 – working in hazardous conditions that pose a serious risk of injury or death.2



•
Membership in industry initiatives and other civil society organizations does not demonstrate that a company’s cobalt supply chain is free of child labor, since these organizations have limited governmental involvement and lack authority to effectively regulate cobalt production.3



•
As of 2020, the large majority of cobalt-producing mines in Congo were owned or financed by Chinese companies,4 and the DRC government has made “minimal advancement” in efforts to eliminate child labor.5



•
As much as 70% of cobalt from the DRC is connected with child labor.6 And virtually all Cobalt from the DRC is tainted by various degrees of abuse including slavery, child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, hazardous and toxic working conditions, meager wages, and incalculable environmental harm.7



•
Monitoring the situation is difficult due to “aggressive security forces, intense surveillance, the remoteness of many mining areas, distrust of outsiders, and the sheer scale of hundreds of thousands of people engaged in the feverish excavation of cobalt in medieval conditions”.8



•
The use of child labor or forced labor in a company’s supply chain creates a risk of potentially costly lawsuits and government investigations.9

GM provides insufficient information on the extent to which its supply chain involves or depends on the direct or indirect exploitation of child labor and other human-rights violations outside the United States. As a result, investors are unable to evaluate whether the company is adequately addressing these material risks.