First Ever Fair Trade Cell Phones Hit the Market

You probably have a smartphone, but chances are you don’t have a FAIRphone.  A what?  A FAIRphone.

I’m completely loving this. I'm all about supporting fair trade. You've probably seen a bunch of things in various stores that are labeled "fair trade" but maybe you don't know what that means. Here's an example: if you buy a cup of fair trade coffee, it means that the farmer who harvested the beans in a developing nation had some help getting his/her product to you. The goal of fair trade is to help growers/producers in developing countries get better trading conditions and gives extra help to the growers/producers that promote eco-friendly agriculture. Fair trade aggressively pushes for higher price for producers as well as social and environmental standards.

FAIRphones are the very first ever fair trade phones, designed by a British cellphone company which means that they’re all about fairness and sustainability from the construction of the phone to the treatment of workers.

The FAIRphone is made of tin and tantalum taken from conflict-free mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company that makes the FAIRphone is dedicated to employee welfare and makes sure that everyone from the miners to the factory workers earn fair wages and work in a safe environment.

FAIRphone donates a portion of each sale to Closing the Loop, a program that advocates for the recycling and reuse of cell phones and the company says they also have plans to institute a buyback program for users interested in trading in their current phone for a Fairphone.