Cabot Corporation is a specialty chemicals and performance materials company. It operates in four segments: the Carbon Black Business, the Metal Oxides Business, the Supermetals Business, and the Specialty Fluids Business. Cabot's headquarters is located in Boston, Massachusetts. The company's slogan is "Creating What Matters".

History

The Cabot Corporation was founded in 1882 by Boston entrepreneur Godfrey Lowell Cabot

Godfrey Lowell Cabot

Godfrey Lowell Cabot was an American industrialist and philanthropist, who founded the Cabot Corporation.-Early life:...

. The company started by focusing on certain metalloids and pharmaceuticals in the 20th century and continued into the 21st century by creating small electronic devices.

Products

Some of the products produced at Cabot Corporation are:

• Aerogel
  Aerogel
  Aerogel is a synthetic porous material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas. The result is a solid with extremely low density and thermal conductivity...
  
  
• Carbon Black
  Carbon black
  Carbon black is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum products such as FCC tar, coal tar, ethylene cracking tar, and a small amount from vegetable oil. Carbon black is a form of amorphous carbon that has a high surface-area-to-volume ratio, although its...
  
  
• Caesium formate fluids
• Conductive Compounds
• Elastomer Composites
• Fine Cesium Chemicals
• Fuel Cell Electrocatalysts
• Fumed Metal Oxides
• Inkjet Colorants
• Masterbatch
  Masterbatch
  Masterbatch is a solid or liquid additive for plastic used for coloring plastics or imparting other properties to plastics .-Applications of additive masterbatches:...
  
  
• Mined Minerals
• Niobium
  Niobium
  Niobium or columbium , is a chemical element with the symbol Nb and atomic number 41. It's a soft, grey, ductile transition metal, which is often found in the pyrochlore mineral, the main commercial source for niobium, and columbite...
  
  
• Tantalum
  Tantalum
  Tantalum is a chemical element with the symbol Ta and atomic number 73. Previously known as tantalium, the name comes from Tantalus, a character in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a rare, hard, blue-gray, lustrous transition metal that is highly corrosion resistant. It is part of the refractory...
  
  

Although the company produces multiple products, 77% of the company's FY 2007 revenue came from the sale of Carbon Black, an ultra fine particle used primarily in the production of tire rubber. Other products include the Nanogel brand of aerogel

Aerogel

Aerogel is a synthetic porous material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas. The result is a solid with extremely low density and thermal conductivity...

.

Pollution

Sam Bodman, CEO of Cabot during the coltan boom, was appointed in December 2004 to serve as President Bush’s

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 Secretary of Energy. Under Bodman’s leadership from 1987 to 2000, according to Jason Leopold

Jason Leopold

Jason Leopold is an American investigative reporter. Leopold is known for his work at Truthout as a senior editor and reporter, a position he left after three years on February 19, 2008 to co-found the web-based political magazine, The Public Record, according to an email sent to his readers....

 in a Huffington Post article, Cabot was one of the U.S.’s largest polluters, accounting for 60,000 tons of airborne toxic emissions annually. In this same article, Leopold states Cabot had a third-party agreement with Eagle Wings Resources International to supply coltan obtained from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (a misstatement of fact).

Cabot Position on Mining in Africa

Responding to United Nations' Security Council Document (S/2001/357) "Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo", Cabot has issued a position statement on Mining in Africa.

Issued in August 2008, this statement outlines Cabot's sources of tantalum and coltan in Canada, Australia and Mozambique. They also have company-wide procedures to prevent raw materials being sourced inappropriately in Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Zambia, Republic of Burundi or Republic of Rwanda.

Cabot is EICC/GeSI Conflict-Free in Tantalum

In December 2010, the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) Conflict-Free Smelter Review Committee concluded that Cabot Supermetals is compliant with the EICC/GeSI Tantalum validation protocol.

This was based on Conflict-Free Smelter (CFS) assessments conducted in September and October of 2010 at the Cabot Supermetals sites at Boyertown, Pennsylvania

Boyertown, Pennsylvania

Boyertown is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,940 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of , all of it land.-Demographics:...

, and Aizu, Japan.

External links

• Cabot Corporation
• Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reports on Cabot
• Cabot Profile at Wikinvest