“Responsible choices can be profitable”

Special envoy to Amsterdam

What do mosquitoes and cell phones have in common? “A mosquito is small but it can prevent larger beings from sleepingsmiles Eva Gouwens, CEO of Fairphone. This is what we want to do, positively: by demonstrating that we can produce electronic products in an ethical way, we want to involve the whole industry. Borrowed from Anita Roddick, creator of The Body Shop cosmetics, the comparison with the mosquito sums up the ambition of the Dutch company. “The electronics industry, reminds the manager, participates in the destruction of the environment, the perpetuation of social injustices and the production of waste. The average life of a phone is only 26.2 months and less than 15% is recycled.”

That’s all Fairphone intends to change, across the chain. Before becoming a company in 2013, its creators Tessa Wernink, Miquel Ballester and Bas van Abel organized…