Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise building a market for ethical smartphones, has released its 2022 Impact Report, showcasing the company’s progress towards a more sustainable electronics industry for both people and planet.
The annual report highlights the most recent developments across all four of Fairphone’s core areas of impact, including device longevity and the avoidance of electronic waste, the sourcing of fair and recycled materials, as well as the company’s ongoing efforts to improve the working conditions of people in the supply chain.
It also shows that Fairphone was able to achieve all its targets for 2022 in the different impact areas – a first time milestone. Overall, in 2022 these efforts resulted in avoiding 999 tons of CO2 and 15 tons of electronic waste, with over 54,000 people benefitting (adding up to over 83,000 people since 2017) from Fairphone’s measures.
In a preface to the report, Fairphone CEO Eva Gouwens emphasizes that swift action is needed to bring about change in the electronics industry, calling on industry peers to stop delaying reforms and to follow Fairphone’s example to embrace true sustainability, meaning the well-being of both the planet and its people.
Some other highlights of this year’s report include:
- Being profitable for the third year in a row, despite a difficult market situation.
- In 2022, 40% of Fairphone’s 14 focus materials could be sourced from fair or recycled sources, meeting the company’s targets for 2022.
- A worker in the Fairphone 4 final assembly factory received almost an extra month of salary through Fairphone’s living wage program. In total, 305,000 USD was paid to factory workers of Fairphone’s suppliers in 2022 to support living wages in the supply chain. This includes the workers of an indirect component supplier, an industry first.
- Fairphone co-developed a pilot project on Fairmined Gold Credits that was applied to account for part of the gold used in the Fairphone 4 and Fairphone’s TWS earbuds.
- Fairphone made significant progress towards reducing the company’s carbon footprint. Committing to reach net zero by 2045 – five years ahead of the suggested timeframe – Fairphone successfully reduced Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by the end of 2022.
The full report, as well as a summary document highlighting the most important takeaways, can be found here.