Trade union members face a challenge when we want to buy a phone or a laptop: the long and obscure supply chains mean we cannot be sure that the materials and components are produced to ethical standards. PSEU member Cathal Kelly reports on the efforts of a Dutch social enterprise to bring an ethical smartphone to the market.

On Christmas Eve 2013, Fairphone delivered its first phones to customers. The original plan in 2010 had been different: to start an awareness-raising campaign on the use of two conflict minerals – coltan and tin – in consumer electronics and their role in funding warlords in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But researching the supply chain led Fairphone’s founder and CEO, Bas van Abel, to conclude the only way to uncover the story behind the production chains was for Fairphone itself to make a phone.

“Our goal was to understand the system and see if things could be done differently if you produced a phone putting social values at the base of your mission”, says van Abel.

With its shift from a campaiging organisation to a manufacturer, Fairphone added other social concerns to its ambition. The company’s social aims now include the rights of workers in the Chinese factory where Fairphones are made, along with the environmental impact of the device, including safe recycling, and the longevity of the product, in particular making it repairable.

Making a device that is designed to last goes against the grain of the mainstream of the consumer electronics industry, where many companies plan for their products to go out of date after a few years. A longer-lasting phone was important for Ciarán Swan, a SIPTU member in the Houses of the Oireachtas, who paid out over €500 in the summer 2015 for a Fairphone 2 that was not due to be delivered until December.

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