Supporting Statement: Ford’s business plans rely on promotion of electric vehicles (EV). According to its EV
Strategy, “Ford is investing more than $50 billion in electric vehicles globally through 2026 to develop
breakthrough EVs. The company plans to manufacture them at scale at a run rate of 600,000 electric vehicles
globally by 2024 and then eventually 2 million.”
Ford has likewise increased its investment in EV batteries. And despite recent reports of scaled back EV plants,
these plans still constitute billions of dollars of investments.
But according to reports from the media, government, and third-party watch dogs, EVs and the batteries that go in
them are a serious human rights concern.
Cobalt is a critical mineral used in EV batteries. The majority of cobalt is estimated to come from the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), which is estimated to have the highest worldwide mineral production of cobalt.
Cobalt mining in the DRC is often done by children — as many as 40,000 — working in brutal and unsafe
conditions. A euphemism for these children is “informal” workers.
Many of these children are injured and killed in these conditions. And as noted by the U.S. Department of Labor,
the DRC has made “minimal advancement efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.”
Such child labor — and a refusal to address it — is a gross violation of human rights. Nonetheless, companies like
ours are building business plans around EVs that effectively rely on these violations.
Shareholders have the right to know the extent to which, if any and intentionally or not, Ford’s business plans rely
on or involve the direct or indirect exploitation of child labor and/or the violation of the human rights of child
workers outside the United States.