Priority Mineral Survey and Action

Acer has established Responsible Minerals Due Diligence and Reporting Procedure and Responsible Minerals Risk Management Plan, which are reviewed and updated annually and serve as internal guidelines for the management of responsible mineral sourcing. In 2022, Acer’s responsible minerals sourcing program continued to include 3TG, cobalt, and mica as prioritized minerals in its responsible sourcing strategy. These determinations are based on the prevalence in our products and the sourcing from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (CAHRAs). Acer will continue to reassess its priority minerals as well as be involved in the refining of the procedures to identify CAHRAs. In 2022, Acer issued its fifth consolidated responsible minerals report, outlining the steps taken to conduct due diligence on all of its priority minerals   

2023 Due Diligence Results

Tantalum, Tin, Tungsten and Gold  

As a result of our responsible minerals due diligence measures and the collection of supply chain information for the current 2023 data cycle, we were able to identify 235 unique smelters of 3TG in our supply chain. The quantity of conformant and participating (RMAP-committed) smelters was 233, which is equivalent to 99% of the identified smelters in our supply chain. A summary of our progress year-over-year can be found to the right. Two smelters contributed to the reduction of Acer's conformant and participating smelters to 99% in 2023. One had its certification expire this year, but through ongoing communication, it is expected to rejoin the certification mechanism in 2024. The other, a new addition to Acer's supply chain in 2023, is currently in discussions to potentially participate in the certification mechanism in the future.  

Cobalt and Mica  

As part of its responsible minerals program, cobalt and mica continue to be an additional focus for Acer due to the child labor associated with cobalt mining, the environmental and social impacts of mining and processing mica, and the necessity of these minerals to the functionality of Acer batteries, hard drives and external coatings. As a result of its due diligence measures in 2023, Acer was able to identify 69 unique cobalt refiners in our supply chain. The RMAP status improved to 45 RMAP-conformant, 6 participating and 18 that will require outreach. For mica, Acer was able to identify 5 unique mica processors, of which 4 are participating and 1 requires outreach.  

Other Activities  

Acer also continued using the Risk Readiness Assessment (RRA) tool, jointly developed by the Responible Minerals Initiative (RMI) and the Copper MarkVersion 3.0 was published on October 19th 2023, and went into effect on January 1st 2024. The RRA now consists of 33 criteria organized into the three pillars of Environmental, Social & Governance, and are applicable to any company in the supply chain, regardless of their types of operations. This includes mining, metal processing, downstream manufacturing, and recycling and the criteria are mineral agnostic. The tool allows Acer to compare suppliers’, smelters’ and mines’ performance against the criteria, improving our ability to assess and manage ESG risk in our minerals supply chain. At the same time, it allows Acer to engage with suppliers further up the supply chain, which has been a challenge, and also allows the smelter to connect with and have visibility of the downstream companies that use the materials that they place on the market. This helps to define the ESG expectations and emphasize the value of the RMI assessments available . At the time of the writing of this report, Acer has received RRAs from 105 processor facilities.