Course:ELEC300E/CaseStudies/FairPhone

Context: Electronic Supply Chains

Fairphone
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Content / Topics
Grief Bots
AI Chatbots
AI Ethics
Relevant Analysis Strategies or Tools
Decision Impact Assessment
Plutchik's Wheel
Needs Analysis

Modern electronics contain over 60 different minerals. How much do you know about where these materials come from, and how they make their way into products?

Unfortunately, around the world, the supply chains supporting the manufacturing of electronics have been associated with socially and environmentally damaging practices:

• Cobalt mining in the Congo (for rechargeable batteries) is associated with extremely inhumane working conditions, child labor and modern day slavery.
• Iron ore and Gold mining in Brazil contributes to the deforestation of the Amazon, and the associated displacement of Indigenous communities.
• Scientists warn that deep sea mining of cobalt, manganese and nickel will destroy ocean ecosystems.
• In plants and manufacturing facilities around the world (Malaysia, for example) investigations have documented child labour, forced labour, and unsafe working conditions.
• Only 20% of e-waste is formally recycled. An additional 30% is 'processed' or informally recycled in some way, through open-air burning for example. This is extremely dangerous for the workers, and for the surrounding communities and ecosystems.

This list is certainly not exhaustive: consumer electronic supply chains are complex and international, impacting workers, communities and ecosystems around the world.

A person critical of smartphone manufacturing might call typical industry practices 'extractivist'. What is extractivism?

In short, extractivism refers to systematically extracting resources, but has complex sociopolitical connotations and histories: "neo-extractivism ... should be seen as a central expression of political domination, in which the material, cultural, and socio-political dimensions and conflicts of a new development model coalesce"

Case: Fairphone

Fairphone is an electronics manufacturer that focuses on designing 'ethical' smartphones. The independent "Good Shopping Guide" gives Fairphone a 99/100 ethical performance score - much higher than the second most ethical smartphone (Nokia at 83/100).

But what does it mean for a smartphone to be ethical?

Fairphone outlines six strategies that they use to make their products 'ethical':

• Longevity: Phones are designed to be durable and repairable so that they last longer.
• Circularity: Phones are designed to be reused, repaired and refurbushed to reduce e-waste - and Fairphone takes back old or broken products.
• Materials: Fairphone sources materials from socially and environmentally responsible recycling facilities and mines
• Factories: Workers have safe working conditions and are paid enough to afford a decent standard of living
• Emissions: Through material selection and by using renewable energy in manufacturing, Fairphone aims to minimize emissions.

Fairphone releases extensive quantitative life cycle analysis and impact reports about each of its products, including a >100 page yearly impact report. It also has a blog that explains and promotes its approach, its products and its perspectives on issues like child labor in mining in more decriptive language:

I recently returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where I saw the reality of artisanal cobalt mining with my own eyes. The DRC holds the vast majority of global cobalt reserves, and estimates suggest that tens of thousands of children work in the mines. The contrast between the beautiful smartphones we own and the red dust of the mines in Kolwezi is incredibly shocking. The work is hard, exhausting, and life-threatening. You see people, men and women, breaking the ground with basic tools to extract the minerals from the soil that power our digital world. But my biggest realization was not just the extreme hardship I saw. It was the realization that for countless families in the region, mining is their only economic means of survival.

...

When most major tech companies are confronted with the reality of child labor in places like Congo, their standard reaction is to hide behind paperwork. Child labor in their supply chain is even often denied. They point to corporate ethical codes of conduct and complex audit schemes. But anyone who has visited these regions knows that this is an illusion. Artisanal and industrial materials are often mixed at local trading houses before reaching a global smelter.

Fairphone isn't the only smartphone manufacturer to address these issues, or to include impact reports and ethical statements on their websites. For example, the Samsung website also has an ethics section that includes reports and outlines their approach to ethics:

As our business spans across numerous countries around the globe, we recognise and analyse differences in laws, regulations, and practices in respective countries while conducting business in lawful and ethical manner. We also develop and implement global personal data security policies to respect the privacy of our customers and employees and to protect their personal data. Our endeavors to systematically manage compliance and ethical risks are driven by the Samsung Global Code of Conduct and the Business Conduct Guidelines that guide all our employees in taking action and making value judgment. Our Compliance Team, previously under the Legal Office, now reports directly to the CEO and the head of Compliance Team attends all board meetings to support important decisions made by the board. We operate dedicated organizations at each business division and overseas regional offices to manage compliance issues pertaining to each business and region.

Different companies have different values - which are embodied in their products, policies and practices.

Take a brief look at how impacts are discussed in the Fairphone website, blog or reports, and compare that with another smartphone manufacturer like Samsung, Apple or Google.

• What are the company's values, priorities or ethical perspectives?
• What rhetorical or marketing strategies are used to communicate the company's value proposition?
• How are those values reflected in the company products, policies and practices?

Recommended Readings and Resources

• ~10 minute video by Fairphone, outlining several environmental and social concerns across consumer electronic life cycles: https://www.fairphone.com/stories/behind-the-screens-a-fairphone-documentary

Discussion Questions

Here are a few questions to help you begin analyzing the issues discussed in this case study. The purpose of these questions is to prompt reflection and further consideration: there are no right or wrong answers!

1. Emotional Responses: Some of the stories and impacts discussed in this case study are alarming, discouraging and upsetting - other aspects might be more hopeful. Take stock of the emotions and responses that this case study brings up for you. Do these emotionally charged conversations make it difficult to face the realities of the industry, or do they inspire change and action?
2. Contradictory viewpoints and outcomes: Most smartphone companies have an 'ethics' section on their webpage, but they may have significant differences in their core values and in how those values are enacted. How would you summarize the differences in ethical perspectives or values between Fairphone and another smartphone manufacturer?
3. Positive action: What is one part of this case study (an impact, action or idea) that you find particularly hopeful or inspiring? What concrete actions led to this impact - and what further changes do you think are required?
4. Interruptions and invitations: Fairphone is very outspoken about their approach to electronic design, and about the issues that they aim to address. Do you think this public education and marketing strategy is successful? How do you think more engineers, consumers and companies could be invited, incentivized - or forced through legislation - to improve the fairness and sustainability of their practices?
5. Physical connections: This case study touches on working conditions in mining, manufacturing and recycling facilities, and how they impact the physical health of workers. In Canada, we have relatively strict workplace safety laws to protect your health at work, but in some cases work with electronics and the materials involved in manufacturing them can still be hazardous. What physical hazards might you face in your future workplace?
6. Social and Historical Context: According to the UCSC Political Economy Glossary entry on extractivism, "dependent economies on the extraction and exportation of raw materials are located mostly -but not exclusively- in certain places in the world, such as Latin America and Africa". Why would this be the case? What prevents certain forms of extraction from occurring closer to home?
7. Positive Practices: Imagine you are a smartphone manufacturer choosing between alternative suppliers of an important material. What questions would you ask the suppliers? What factors would influence your decision making?