Fair-trade thinking in smartphone world

On average we look at our smartphones 110 times a day. Despite – or perhaps because of – this, most of us look but don't see what we dig out of our pockets every few minutes. That's what the makers of Fairphone hope to change.

Their slogan, “Buy a phone, join a movement”, gives a hint of their unique selling point in the crowded yet opaque smartphone market.

The Amsterdam-based company wants to stand out by offering customers a phone created under the best possible conditions with the fairest components.

And the phone should last, too, for economic and environmental reasons.

In short, the Fairphone is about bringing fair-trade thinking to the smartphone world.

The story began five years ago with a campaign to raise public awareness of conflict minerals. Like conflict diamonds, conflict minerals are essential to the operation of smartphones and other electronic devices.

This is now a globalised, multibillion trade, but one with disastrous consequences at source, from environmental pollution to often nonexistent protection for miners.

One such mineral is tin, used in soldering paste; another is tantalum, used for microchip components.

Civil war

The problem with tantalum and other minerals is that one of its main sources is the Democratic Republic of

Congo

. For years, global sales of the mineral have helped finance a civil war there.

These conflict minerals are used in everything from televisions to hearing aids, but the Dutch campaigners saw the smartphone revolution as a good place to start their campaign to raise awareness and push for alternative mineral sources.

"If you are a brand in the industry there is a lot more you can do to effect things than if you are an outsider organisation pointing fingers," says Miquel Ballester Salva, head of Fairphone product management and innovation.

Getting into the mobile phone business was, to mix metaphors, a huge leap into the dark with a steep learning curve. Now Fairphone employs 40 people, mostly in Amsterdam but also in China and the US; 20 nationalities and 17 languages in all.

The first phone was launched 18 months ago, crowdfunded by 5,000 users convinced by Fairphone’s pitch. The gamble paid off and 65,000 phones have been sold to date. The company has just begun taking orders for its improved Fairphone 2.

Minuscule parts

Given the thousands of minuscule parts in each smartphone, Fairphone doesn’t claim it knows where every component comes from. But by reducing its total number of tier one and tier two suppliers to 74, a considerable achievement in the web of global trade, it is working to improve process transparency with supplier background checks.

On conflict minerals, its aim is to use alternative sources that benefit local economies and not armed militias.

“We do our own due diligence,” says Salva. “We have direct contact with first-tier suppliers and . . . though it may just be a handful, this is just the beginning.”

Better design

Profits from the first phone have enabled the company to become more choosy about who it does business with, as well as financing a better phone design.

In this, Fairphone engineers disagree with Apple and Samsung that good smartphone design is about having the thinnest device.

“We’re heading towards electronics anorexia,” says Salva, arguing that the look of a phone has become more important than its durability.

“Those phones are designed to be nice to look at and use,” he says, “but we all know what happens when they drop.”

The Fairphone 2 is thicker, but its engineers say it is more durable than its competitors. And while Apple and Samsung try to keep the repair business to themselves, locking their devices down with glue and nonstandard screws, the Fairphone is an open book.

You can clip off the rubber casing and easily separate it from the screen component and motherboard. The screen and battery, usually the first things to go on a phone, are easily replaceable, and even the other parts are not hidden.

Declaring war

Although Fairphone engineers don’t encourage people to start dismantling their phones with a screwdriver, they can if they want to – with online tutorials to show you how.

By declaring war on inbuilt obsolescence, Fairphone is hoping to win over self-interested users less motivated by the human cost of conflict minerals.

Of course, given the 150 million smartphones sold annually in Europe, Fairphone is a drop in a huge bucket. But then again, you are not just buying a phone, you are buying into a movement. As Salva says: "We're here to inspire."

Fairphone 2: What does your €529 buy you?

The Fairphone 1 was praised for its thinking but, priced at €325, it was criticised for its middle-of-the-road components and performance. At €529, the Fairphone 2 is promising more bang for your buck, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. It is a dual-sim phone using 4G LTE network and offering a larger, 5in Gorilla glass display with a resolution of 1080 × 192, offering a higher pixel density than the iPhone 6.

It measures 73mm x 14.3mm and is 11mm thick. It weighs 168g including the external case. The phone will run Android 5.1 (Lollipop) but Fairphone says it is in talks for offering further choice, possibly with Sailfish OS (based on open-source) from Finnish mobile company Jolla.