# Responsible Minerals Initiative The industry body that operates the chokepoint on which every conflict-minerals regime in the world actually depends. Founded in **2008** as the **Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative** by the electronics industry's Citizenship Coalition and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, renamed in 2017, and now an initiative of the Responsible Business Alliance with over 500 member companies across industries. ## What it does **RMAP — the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process** — audits smelters and refiners against standards derived from the [[OECD Due Diligence Guidance]] and publishes the **Conformant Smelter and Refiner List**. It also maintains the **Conflict Minerals Reporting Template**, the standardised spreadsheet through which supply-chain smelter disclosure moves and which is the de facto instrument of [[Dodd-Frank Section 1502]] compliance. That design follows directly from the physics of the problem. Ore from many mines is aggregated and smelted into metal that is chemically indistinguishable by origin, so provenance cannot be recovered downstream. Smelters are where many mines' output converges and where an audit can still mean something. On **16 October 2025** the European Commission recognised RMAP as the **first supply-chain due diligence scheme recognised under the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation.** ## Why that matters more than it sounds RMI's audit list is, in practice, what "conflict-free" means when a consumer-electronics company says it. Dodd-Frank compliance rests on it. EU compliance now formally rests on it. And it is run by an association of the buyers. Its most consequential decision to date was a negative one. After [[Global Witness]]'s 2022 investigation into [[ITSCI]] — the dominant upstream tagging scheme in the Great Lakes — **RMI allowed ITSCI's recognition to lapse on 31 October 2022**, and from 1 July 2023 cited auditees relying on ITSCI without independent evidence as non-conformant. ITSCI paused its own reapplication in December 2023; RMI paused consideration in July 2024. That is the system working. It is also the system revealing its own limit: RMI can decline to recognise an upstream scheme, and it cannot replace one. The Great Lakes still needs a tagging system at the mine, and the credible one was withdrawn. ## See also [[OECD Due Diligence Guidance]] · [[ITSCI]] · [[Dodd-Frank Section 1502]] · [[Conflict Minerals Ecosystem]] · [[Conflict Minerals Hub]]