So, i am currently thinking of getting a Fairphone. I recently had a discussion with colleagues from university, about whether it is a good idea to buy a Fairphone or a used Smartphone.
One guy brought up, that the parts that make up a Fairphone, cannot be “Fair-Trade”.
So i wanted to investigate about that, but i can’t find anything about it really. I mean i read that the rare-earths (do you call it that in english?) are as fair as possible. But are the components, like the LCD screens, batterys, CPUs, etc. also fair? Where do they come from?
I would really like to get deeper into this topic, because i think it is very important, but to make well-founded arguments, i need to have more facts at hand.
Maybe i was just too stupid to find it, i would really appreciate if someone could help me on that matter
Indeed, most individual “ingredients” need to be bought from suppliers, so Fairphone has no control about the circumstances of their production. Assembly and production of the core module (motherboard) should be different though.
Basically used smartphone would be more ethical. BUT you don’t have security updates as someone else has already used the device the time that manufacturer supports it and keeps it safer. (If not so you are probably paying some extra for the device and as people are not going to stop using smartphone after selling one. The seller is probably going to use that extra money to buy a phone that is probably less ethically sourced etc.) Fairphone on the otherhand aknowledges that there is still work to do to be able to brand it as completely fair.
I always wonder why people on this forum forget about the option being buying a used Fairphone
I think a refurbished Fairphone is the best option, that’s how I got my FP2 (it would be great to have FP3s new life edition!)
But is it any better to own multiple fairphone devices just to have spare parts on the go even if they both are secondhand. Isn’t then literally away from someone else? Maybe eelo could do something like that you proposed? they already have both software support and sales of second hand refurb. phones. They could just stop buying more used fp parts when they start treating it as legacy device. sorry for my grammar and I overexxacturated somethings to make a point no hard feelings.
