Under US law, certain companies are required to file with the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) a report which describes their efforts to source tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold (3TG) responsibly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and surrounding countries – called a “Conflict Minerals Report”. This metric states whether a company files a Conflict Minerals Report (or CMR), and links to it as a source when it exists.

The trade in minerals has been linked to conflict and human rights abuses in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan and Colombia. These minerals – sometimes called “conflict minerals” – are used in a wide variety of goods we use every day like smartphones, laptops and cars.

The term “adjoining country” or "covered country" is defined in Section 1502(e)(1) of the Dodd-Frank Act as a country that shares an internationally recognised border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which presently includes Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. See Page 6 of the Act.