At The Next Web conference last week, Julia van Boven of ABN AMRO’s Sustainable Finance Desk uses Fairphone as an example of a Circular Economy business model.
This Dutch bank considers seven categories of circular model, including Circular Design. In Circular Design, design for repairibility is prioritizes, as is the consideration of material sourcing and (non)toxicity.
Quite interesting.
I appreciate, that you put the circular design in quotation marks.
Calling the Fairphone concept “Circular” - to me - is stretching the word beyond the breaking point (so to speak).
Pretty rich to hear ABN AMRO talking about sustainability, seeing as they’re largely sustained by their investments in oil pipelines and deforestation projects.
I’m sure they buy refurbished furniture for their offices or something, but there’s a reason they’re talking about design and repairability rather than broader business models and the effects of their investments.
Edit: not to mention that they are used to be a subsidiary of RBS, which has been forming illegal cartels with other banks to rig the foreign exchange market - all of those banks have just now been collectively fined over a billion euros by the EU. So I guess they need some good press right now.
I believe they are one of the investors in Fairphone and bringing Fairphone forward is thus in their own interest as well.
Edit: see here, ABN Amro is indeed involved with Fairphone.
“…collectively fined over a billion euros…”
Pocket money.
Are they still? Wikipedia in Dutch explains in detail how RBS and ABN were split in 2009/2010. As far as I am aware, ABN has been largely owned by the Dutch government since the 2008 crisis. They are trying to get rid of the bank, but haven’t managed to do so yet.
It looks like you’re right and I was wrong. Haven’t kept up with the banks in the past decade, I guess - thank you for the correction.
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