What does a sustainable smartphone look like?

In an effort to combat the growing issue of electronic waste, Dutch social enterprise Fairphone has developed a smartphone that users can repair themselves. Co-founder Bas van Abel demonstrates how he can disassemble his entire smartphone, highlighting the eight components that can be removed and replaced. Fairphone, which was established in 2013 in Amsterdam, produces Android smartphones that are designed to be easily exchanged, customised, and repaired by their owners. The company's goal is to encourage people to repair their phones instead of discarding them when a component fails, thereby reducing electronic waste.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that approximately 50 million tonnes of e-waste are generated globally each year, which weighs more than all the commercial airliners ever made. Unfortunately, only 20% of this waste is recycled. The Belgian non-profit The WEEE Forum estimates that in 2022 alone, 5. 3 billion mobile phones were discarded. In the US, people replace their phones every 18 months on average as new models with upgraded features are released. Fairphone aims to disrupt this trend by selling phones that have a longer lifespan.

Fairphone's mission is centred around sustainability. The company uses 100% recycled plastic in all its phones and sources fairtrade gold and silver. However, not all the materials used in Fairphone models are sustainable. The Fairphone 5, for example, contains 40 different materials, but only 14 of these (which make up 42% of the total weight of the phone) are sourced sustainably and ethically. The company is working to increase the number of materials it sources from sustainable and ethical sources.