#shiftphone

It hast been again long time no see. I have to admit that I only suceed to write from time to time (as you might already have noticed ;)).

I got inspired by supply chains this time, sounds boring I know. I believe in the importance of this topic regarding sustainability. The germans discuss the Lieferkettengesetz, France has already a law in place that obliges firms to disclose their supply chain and to make it transparent.

An industry where it is crucial to look at the beginning is electronics. The production of mobile phones is an interesting example. One needs precious ressources such as Cobalt and Platin. The Democratic Rebuplic of the Congo is a country rich of those highly demanded ressources. Unfortunately, this is not valued at all... An interesting documentary in German can be found here: https://www.daserste.de/information/politik-weltgeschehen/weltspiegel/videos/kongo-das-schwarze-gold-fuer-handys-102.html.

All in all, they state that there is a difference between certified mines and non-certified ones. In the former there is no violence anymore, no child labour and no pregnant women, they say to be “without conflict”. The latter is lead by armed rebell groups. Nowadays, only certified mines can export. It is dangerous to mine Coltan due to landslides, still nobody is wearing helmets or boots. At least the working conditions got better in that sense that they mine now above ground, before they had to climb down in shafts. Many young persons work as day labourers in the mines. The documentation takes the example of a young guy called Mathis. He gains 1,70€ per day and lives with his mother and 4 siblings for whom he is responsible for. It is impossible to provide food and pay the school fees for Mathis. The laws from the US and Europe are going in the right direction and are a first step to more fairness in the trade of the minerals but this can only be the beginning!

There are manufacturers paying attention to these hot topics. One of them is the german company shiftphone. Compared to Fairphone, the most popular one, shiftphone has even it's own manufacturs in Hangzhou, China. To manufacture in China is currently best or the environment and the employees there also get paid fair wages by shiftphone. Regarding materials like Coltan the founder Carsten Waldeck travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to judge the situation himself. He visited certified mines. You can read more about the values of shitphone and their approach here: https://www.shiftphones.com/impact-2/. I talked and had an interesting discussion with Carsten about supply chains on the Global Social Business Summit 2018.

I own a shiftphone (5me) myself and am pretty satisfied. Only the camera is not sooo good...

Still, I think they are doing a great job and they are revolutionising a whole industry!

Another example regarding supply chains is jewelery. Gold is often sourced under bad ecological and also social conditions. There was an interesting interview in the enorm magazine with Marleen. She tells that there is often child labour and toxical processes ongoing. Thats why its best to use recycled materials. For example in each mobile phone there are raw sources. This makes it important to not store them in an old cupboard but to donate them so that they can get recycled (See former blog post from 27.08.2019, sometimes repetition is crucial ;)). Also Thomas Becker is preoccupied by using either recycled or ecofair gold from mines that he visited himself, knowing the living conditions and the families. More about this great initiative can be found here: http://www.tbschmuck.de/ecofaires-gold/was-bedeutet-ecofair/.

Utopia is a great german platform with lots of information about sustainability, they really talk about almost every daily life aspect in combination with sustainability. After having talked about phones and jewelery, a less popular topic is defintely grave stones. It is estimated that half of the in Germany sold grave stones are sourced from child labour (https://utopia.de/ratgeber/grabstein-sarg-beerdigung/). Incredible, isn’t it? A solution are the certifications Xertifix or Fair Stone that ensure no child labour. Even better are grave stones from stonemasons who use local stones.

I hope this short excursus in the supply chains wasn’t finally to boring for you :)

I’ll build you a Fire...

Seabear ♫♪