Shame on tuta for the headline. Sure, they’re European companies, but according to the article everything except the Volla phone is made in China.
Per the article, the Volla phone starts manufacturing in Taiwan (which I 100% support) and then finishes in Germany so that’s the only one of these that I’d actually consider.
A big thing about the Fairphone is ensuring proper compensation to the entire production chain for the phone.
When it comes to electronics its essentially impossible not to have it go through China, and even if it does not go through China, there is no guarantee that workers are not being exploited. So making sure that there is no exploitation in the production processes is more important for me than avoiding China altogether.
We live in a globalised world. To demand a “pure” X phone is simply ludicrous. Children mine many important minerals with little to no protection in west African countries, and if it’s not children, it’s probably Uyghurs or some other minority for the rare earth metals, the chips are made in multiple countries but mostly China and Taiwan using Dutch machines, assembled by suicidal hand in East and Central Asian countries, and sold in Europe. And that’s not even all parts of the supply chain! Nearly every single link exploits one person or another, the money is used to lobby or forcefully keep the status quo in said country while making mostly already wealth Westerners rich.
To have a purely European phone, you’d probably have to pay 5k at least for the phone. Every European country’s citizens will resist mining in their country because they are acutely aware of the environmental damage it does and who will get rich from it, but they will gleefully buy the same product made under horrible conditions in other countries and not bat an eye when asked if it’s hypocritical. “At least it wasn’t my backyard”.
Shame on tuta for the headline. Sure, they’re European companies, but according to the article everything except the Volla phone is made in China.
Per the article, the Volla phone starts manufacturing in Taiwan (which I 100% support) and then finishes in Germany so that’s the only one of these that I’d actually consider.
A big thing about the Fairphone is ensuring proper compensation to the entire production chain for the phone.
When it comes to electronics its essentially impossible not to have it go through China, and even if it does not go through China, there is no guarantee that workers are not being exploited. So making sure that there is no exploitation in the production processes is more important for me than avoiding China altogether.
We live in a globalised world. To demand a “pure” X phone is simply ludicrous. Children mine many important minerals with little to no protection in west African countries, and if it’s not children, it’s probably Uyghurs or some other minority for the rare earth metals, the chips are made in multiple countries but mostly China and Taiwan using Dutch machines, assembled by suicidal hand in East and Central Asian countries, and sold in Europe. And that’s not even all parts of the supply chain! Nearly every single link exploits one person or another, the money is used to lobby or forcefully keep the status quo in said country while making mostly already wealth Westerners rich.
To have a purely European phone, you’d probably have to pay 5k at least for the phone. Every European country’s citizens will resist mining in their country because they are acutely aware of the environmental damage it does and who will get rich from it, but they will gleefully buy the same product made under horrible conditions in other countries and not bat an eye when asked if it’s hypocritical. “At least it wasn’t my backyard”.