Kumi Newsletter December 2024
2024 has been a year of significant growth and development for Kumi. We have been investing heavily to better support our clients in navigating the complex and fast-changing landscape of responsible sourcing and to support our core mission of helping to build responsible business practices in global supply chains. This newsletter is part of our commitment to sharing valuable insights and updates with you; our clients and partners. We hope you find it useful and would love to hear any feedback on how we can improve it!
One of the standout highlights this year has been our work developing the Due Diligence Guidance for the EU Batteries Regulation, on behalf of the European Commission. In November, we hosted a highly successful webinar on this topic, together with our partner, Circulor, discussing the draft guidelines and implications for industry. We were delighted by the 900 registrations and high engagement in this topic.
Building on this momentum, we are excited to announce that we will host a dedicated event on the EU Batteries Regulation at the Africa Mining Indaba in February 2025. This will be a ‘deep dive’ into the implications of the due diligence requirements, with a particular emphasis on what this means for companies producing battery metals in, or sourcing them from Africa. This event will be held on the afternoon of Monday 3 February at the Radisson RED, Cape Town V&A Waterfront. We will share further details soon on how to register.
Sticking with Mining Indaba, I am pleased to share that I will be speaking on two panels during this conference: one on the topic of the ‘social license’, and the other discussing the impact of responsible mining standards.
Prior to the Mining Indaba conference, I will also be speaking at the World Resources Forum on 28 January in Zug, Switzerland, which will be discussing the role of the commodities trading and extractive industries in driving the energy transition. I will be discussing the impact of recent regulatory requirements, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and the role of industry standards. If you are attending either this conference or Mining Indaba and would like to meet up, do get in touch!
Alongside preparing for new regulatory compliance obligations, the topic of industry standards for responsible mining, such as Copper Mark and others, has been another important thematic area for our work at Kumi during 2024. We have supported several of our clients to successfully prepare for and achieve accreditation against such standards; we expect this to remain an important area of our work in 2025.
As we look ahead to 2025, we are excited by the potential of what we can all achieve together. Thank you for being part of this journey with us – we are looking forward to working with you in the year ahead.
On behalf of all of us at Kumi, I wish you a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Founder and CEO
EU Batteries Regulation: Alignment of electronics multinational
Their key concern was how to implement an updated policy within their complex supply chain and ensure that suppliers understood their obligations and what was being asked of them in any updated contractual clauses.
Mining company benchmarked against Copper Mark Criterion 10
Kumi was commissioned by a copper mining company to undertake a gap analysis of its existing management system against Criterion 10 of the Copper Mark standard.
