Jon Partridge - 

In a quite contrasting view of the friendly game console and software maker, a human rights group has put Nintendo dead last in its conflict minerals ranking list, in a report that details sourcing minerals that are mined in war conditions amongst human rights abuses.

The report has stated that Nintendo has not made any known effort to “trace or audit its supply chain.” HTC, Sharp, Nikon and Canon were also picked on by The Enough Project, a part of the Centre for American Progress, saying that although they had started to look at conflict minerals, they are still “far behind industry leaders”.

The report scores firms on their efforts to find out where minerals and metals that they use in building their tech comes from, as well as their attempts to get a conflict-free certification and support for legislation against conflict minerals. Much like Greenpeace’s Greener Electronics guide, companies are also judged by their environmental ranking as well.

On the other side of the list, Intel, Motorola, HP and Apple took up some of the top slots, but were also labelled as being “pioneers of progress”, having made steps forward to “develop solutions despite delays in the legislative rule-making process by the US Securities and Exchange Commission — an excuse that many other companies have used to explain their lack of significant action,” the Project said.

The Project continued, “These leading companies have developed conflict minerals programs that have paved the way for other companies to follow.”

Nintendo could do well to learn from the leading companies in the sector, especially with public awareness of the issue growing as well as significant industry movement. With the upcoming launch of the new Wii U console, Nintendo had best take some steps to make sure their new products are free of any conflict minerals. [Enough Project via The Register]