A new
ethical smartphone raises questions whether they can ever be truly
conflict-free but it will certainly shake up the market
Guardian Professional, Rich McEachran, 19
September 2013
 |
| Founded at the beginning of 2013, Fairphone is aiming to disrupt the status quo of the smartphone market. Photograph: Fairphone |
This
article is being typed on a Samsung laptop and the interviews have been
conducted via an Apple product. In the past, boycotting the electronic giants
has been seen as ineffective as there hasn't been a conflict-free alternative
to turn to in protest. Now there is.
Founded at
the beginning of the year, Fairphone is aiming to disrupt the status quo of the
smartphone market. Costing €325 (around £275 or $440) it's reasonably priced,
and given the recent announcement of the iPhone 5S & 5C, its launch is
timely.
It started
in 2010 as a campaign to create awareness of abuses in electronics supply
chains. The Dutch social enterprise soon realised that creating a conflict-free
smartphone was a tangible goal. Using existing initiatives such as
Conflict-Free Tin Initiative and Solutions for Hope, it has managed to ensure
sources of tin and tantalum are conflict-free and it's trying to be as
transparent as possible throughout the supply chain, from the mines to the
factories to the end user. It has even released a cost breakdown of where every
pound is spent. Part of each sale goes towards Closing the Loop, a global
programme that encourages the reuse and recycling of old mobile phones.
Fairphone
has received 15,000 pre-orders with 25,000 handsets available, and this week
the company will showcase the product at its UK launch at the London Design
Festival.
Fairphone
openly admits that its product isn't "100% ethical", but is proud of
the fact that it is putting people and social values first. It seems consumers
understand this, too. A Twitter search brings up plenty of tweets from people
who have bought a handset. The majority of Twitter users approached indicated
that they were buying into the movement, supporting the cause and helping
create public awareness.
Natalie
Foo, co-owner of an e-consultancy firm whose clients have included an iron ore
mining company, told me that she was inspired to buy one after meeting
Fairphone's product strategist last year, when the phone was still in its
incubation stage.
"By
examining the supply chain and manufacturing processes in detail, they can
encourage people to be more conscious about their purchases and educate them on
what actually goes on," explains Foo.
One user
who preferred to remain anonymous, said that "splitting hairs over whether
a product can ever be totally free of conflict is creating a false
dichotomy" and that people should just "buy into the feel good factor
of Fairphone helping clean up supply chains".
Another
anonymous user, who works in software development, said they would avoid buying
it because instead of being run on a free software, it is run on the Android
operating-system, a software market dominated by Samsung, which makes 95% of
Android phone sales.
The
complexity of the relationships in the electronics industry – for instance,
Apple has been known to use parts produced by Samsung – does beg the question
of whether a phone can ever be free from conflict or avoid being connected to a
company that is failing to clean up its act.
Those who
had bought the Fairphone seemed to have done so partly out of a feeling of
guilt. Buying the phone was seen as a way to absolve themselves from indirectly
supporting and funding the illegal mining and war in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
"While
owning a phone does not make a person responsible for these violations, it does
link us to the atrocities, and given the intimacy and constancy of these
objects in our lives, the connection is ever-present and thereby
disturbing" says Daniel Rothenberg, a lecturer at Arizona State University
who presented a paper in July titled Is your cell phone linked to atrocities in Africa?.
At the same
time, those asked admitted that if Apple, Nokia or Samsung were to release
their own conflict-free phones they would consider buying one.
"A
shift like that in the industry, from [one of the big three companies], will be
a game-changer," explains Bandi Mbubi, the founder of Congo Calling.
"And it is no longer too far off. The ground has been prepared [by
Fairphone]. The movement has brought the end-users closer, at least
psychologically, to the producers of raw materials. It has raised unprecedented
awareness in the minds of consumers."
There is
still reason to be cautious, though. If the electronic giants produce their own
conflict-free smartphone, then arguably Fairphone has set out to achieve what
it wanted and that is to put consumer pressure on companies to clean up their
supply chains. However, if companies start making claims of being fairer and
more ethical without having the evidence to validate them, then consumers are
likely to sniff them out.
Due to the
nature of supply chains, and as companies don't buy directly from mines but
from smelters, there is always the risk that illegal minerals could be smuggled
in. This convoluted manufacturing system has given companies an excuse to
pardon themselves from any wrongdoing.
The hope
though is that with the Dodd-Frank legislation coming into effect next year,
companies will no longer have excuses and can legitimately claim that their
supply chains are 100% conflict-free by the end of 2014. Sasha Lezhnev, a
senior policy analyst at the Enough Project, a humanitarian organisation
dedicated to ending genocide and crimes against humanity, believes that this is
a realistic aim and that a key step towards achieving this is the audit of
smelters. As it stands, only a quarter of smelters have gone through
conflict-free audits.
"Over
the next year, as companies implement the legislation, this number should go up
significantly, to the point that electronics companies can weed out the
uncertified smelters from their supply chains" says Lezhnev.
"Another
key step is to make sure those companies also help build a clean minerals trade
in Congo by buying from certified mines, because if they don't, the smuggled
minerals will come back to bite them in a dirty supply chain."
Until then,
Fairphone is a welcome development in highlighting the issues of ethical
conduct of the smartphone market.
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