{"id":7,"date":"2014-03-04T10:04:33","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T10:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/?p=7"},"modified":"2014-03-04T10:04:33","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T10:04:33","slug":"ibuild-director-receives-new-wearefairphone-a-new-business-model-for-mobile-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/2014\/03\/04\/ibuild-director-receives-new-wearefairphone-a-new-business-model-for-mobile-phones\/","title":{"rendered":"iBUILD director receives new #wearefairphone \u2013 a new business model for mobile phones?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/files\/2014\/03\/fairphone_logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8\" alt=\"fairphone_logo\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/files\/2014\/03\/fairphone_logo.png\" width=\"298\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I would not normally consider the arrival of a new phone\u00a0to be\u00a0newsworthy.\u00a0 However, this one is different \u2013 the team behind it have developed a high-performance smartphone that has sought to place social and environmental values at its core without compromising on quality.\u00a0Steps take include sourcing of\u00a0minerals from conflict-free mines, a worker welfare fund, social assessment of factory procedures, reducing waste in the supply chain and investing profits into the establishment of recycling fund.\u00a0 I was particularly impressed by the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fairphone.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\">fairphone\u00a0blog<\/a>\u00a0(yes much more active than this one for starters) that revealed in some detail the steps taken, their\u00a0successes \u2013 but was also very honest about the barriers and limits.\u00a0 This transparency provided a fascinating insight into the complexity of implementing social and environmental values into\u00a0global supply chains, and its honesty is refreshing.<\/p>\n<p>They\u00a0have now sold and shipped their first\u00a025,000\u00a0units \u2013 and I\u00a0am a\u00a0proud owner of a specially marked \u201cFirst Edition\u201d phone.\u00a0\u00a0Aside from my natural passion for sustainable living, this initiative seemed particularly relevant to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibuild.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">iBUILD Infrastructure Business Models<\/a>\u00a0research programme that I lead.\u00a0\u00a0A core goal of iBUILD is to try and harness the social and environmental value of infrastructure.\u00a0 Parts of\u00a0the iBUILD\u00a0programme explicitly focus on issues around the infrastructure supply chain and the interdependencies\u00a0between infrastructure and the economy \u2013 that provide challenges but also opportunities.\u00a0 Although the gulf between mobile phones and infrastructure may seem large, I think there is much\u00a0that we can\u00a0learn from the fairphone journey!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I would not normally consider the arrival of a new phone\u00a0to be\u00a0newsworthy.\u00a0 However, this one is different \u2013 the team behind it have developed a high-performance smartphone that has sought to place social and environmental values at its core without &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/2014\/03\/04\/ibuild-director-receives-new-wearefairphone-a-new-business-model-for-mobile-phones\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4914,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ibuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}