Aluminum, a lightweight metal produced from a red ore known as bauxite, is a key material for car companies’ transition toward electric cars and more fuel-efficient vehicles. Yet despite aluminum’s potential benefits, bauxite mining and aluminum production can have devastating human rights and environmental consequences, from the destruction of farmland and damage to water sources to the significant carbon emissions from aluminum smelting.
The new report shines a light on the human rights impacts of the aluminum industry, using examples from around the world and an in-depth case study of bauxite mining in Guinea. The report assesses how the global automobile industry is tackling the impacts of aluminum production on affected communities, based on meetings and correspondence with nine major car manufacturers – BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Groupe PSA, Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo.
Given the importance of aluminum to the car industry’s future, the report concludes that car companies should do much more to push mining companies, refineries, and smelters to respect human rights and protect the environment and should stop sourcing from aluminum producers that decline to do so.
The news conference will be simultaneously interpreted into both French and English.
What: Launch of Human Rights Watch and Inclusive Development International’s report:
Aluminum: The Car Industry’s Blind Spot – Why Car Companies Should Address the Human Rights Impact of Aluminum Production
Who:
- Kounssa Bailo Barry, Guinean farmer and activist
- Natalie Bugalski, co-founder and legal and policy director, Inclusive Development International
- Jim Wormington (moderator), senior Africa researcher on natural resources, Human Rights Watch
When: Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 10am EDT/2pm GMT
Where: Register online via Zoom here:
https://hrworg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_36bgE7OpSnmflaiK4qbp5g