As I’m practically conjoined to my phone, I’d prefer for it to not be linked to conflict minerals, labor exploitation, or environmental devastation. Yet so few smartphones pass this very basic test. Mine definitely doesn’t.
Ethical Consumer, a British nonprofit organization, recently updated its guide to cell phones. One little-known brand was head and shoulders above the rest: Fairphone scored 14 points out of 20, well ahead of Nokia with 9, iPhone with 6, and bottom-of-the-barrel Samsung with 6. As explained in the November/December 2019 issue of Ethical Consumer magazine, “Fairphone is the only brand in our guide which truly aims to put people and environment before profit.”
The environmental bona fides are partly due to the Fairphone’s modular designs, so that if one component breaks down, it can be easily repaired or replaced. This encourages holding onto a phone versus discarding it with each breathless new product unveiling. The Fairphone is even packaged with a screwdriver tool. Fairphone’s Fabian Hühne explains, “For all its different modules including the parts that most frequently need replacement, like the screen and a battery, Fairphone sells spare parts, which users can use for DYI repairs.”
“They’ve really been pushing for modularity and repairability,” Greenpeace’s Elizabeth Jardim agrees. “Other than that, Apple, Microsoft – these devices are not easily repaired. I myself have replaced my Apple battery device a few times and it was it was a tricky endeavor and you always run the risk of breaking your device as you try to fix it. And with Apple products in particular, once you open the device, if you’re not an ‘authorized repair technician,’ the device loses some of its warranty.” Apple has over 5,000 authorized repair centers, and is increasing the number of independent businesses it allows to repair its products.
Fairphone takes a different tack, tapping into the worldwide right-to-repair movement. The Fairphone 2 and 3 models are the only ones with a smartphone repairability score of 10 by iFixit. iFixit’s engineers point to the ease of disassembling Fairphones with simple tools, as well as visual cues inside the devices.
It’s a far cry from obsessive device restrictions of certain other companies. “Companies have also been found to use techniques such as gluing essential parts of a phone or tablet together so, if the device was opened up, the parts would break,” according to Ethical Consumer magazine.
Assembly of a Fairphone (Photo by Daniel Karmann)
The expected lifetime of a smartphone is three years, and most Western consumers upgrade after two years – partly out of necessity due to inflexible phones.
Why does the longevity of a phone matter? The majority of a smartphone’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the production stage, and it’s a nightmare to deal with the refuse of discarded phones. “40% of the e-waste supposedly recycled in the U.S. was actually exported, mainly to Asia,” according to Ethical Consumer magazine. And “e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world, and is on course to double by 2050 at the current rate. In many ways, the problem is inherent to the design and consumption of technological products.”
However, while Fairphone products are less likely to add to e-waste than many others, not everyone’s a fan. WIRED UK called the Fairphone 2 “dumpy” as well as “ethical but ugly” – a memorably damning bit of praise – and noted that the company’s small size limits how much of an impact it can truly have. (The company has only sold about 175,000 phones so far, and the phones are optimized for Europe.)
The latest model, the Fairphone 3, launched in August 2019. Like its predecessor, it doesn’t have top-of-the-line specs and isn’t the sleekest phone you can buy. As with laptops, ethics don’t always translate into scale and performance.
But Fairphone does release hardware upgrades for its models, such as camera parts. “So we also innovate through our existing models rather than only through new devices,” according to Fairphone’s Hühne. “For now, we are focusing on developing Fairphone 3 further.” This may mean that it’s becoming ever more likely that a single smartphone can be both upgradable in the long term and high-performing.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2019/12/21/to-repair-or-not-to-repairyour-own-phone/
2019-12-21 07:39:50Z
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