Cobalt Industry Responsible Assessment Framework (CIRAF)

The Cobalt Industry Responsible Assessment Framework (CIRAF) is a management tool designed for all companies, whether or not they are producing and/or sourcing from high-risk countries.
CIRAF consolidates due diligence actions being taken by companies across the cobalt industry to demonstrate best practice and meet the expectations of civil society, the media and the cobalt market. As such, CIRAF provides a unified yet flexible approach towards responsible and sustainable cobalt production and sourcing.
The benefits of CIRAF include:
  • It strengthens the ability of cobalt producers and buyers to assess, mitigate, and report on responsible production and sourcing risks in their operations and supply chain.
  • It enables a more coherent and consistent approach to cobalt due diligence and reporting by the cobalt industry.
  • It allows participants to demonstrate that they are aligned with global good practice on responsible production and sourcing with annual public reporting being a mandatory requirement.

CIRAF provides a management framework to participants on how to respond to and manage four risk categories and nine risk areas relating to responsible production and sourcing.

Risk Category Risk Area
Environment Air/water/soil environmental impacts

Biodiversity
Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) OHS and working conditions
Human Rights Conflict and financial crime

Human rights abuses

Worst forms of child labour
Community ASM

Livelihoods

Resettlement
ciraf

How it Works

Using the CIRAF materiality assessment, CIRAF participants start by identifying which risk categories and areas are relevant for their operations.

As a baseline requirement, participants must obtain third party assurance of their policy and due diligence management system for the Human Rights category.

For all identified material risks, participants will then undertake an annual assessment of their operations and, where applicable, supply chain. Following the assessment, they must make the following publicly available:

  • A summary of the risk assessment and related activities;
  • Documentation showing the presence of a policy and due diligence management system for managing the identified risks;
  • Demonstration of how existing responsible production and sourcing standards are being applied.

As CIRAF is not a certification scheme, it remains the individual company’s responsibility to demonstrate responsible production and sourcing. However, companies can reference the achieved CIRAF conformity level in their public reporting on CIRAF.

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