Fairphone
Redesigning electronics around fairer and recycled materials
Climate-related raw material risk: Growing demand for critical minerals and metals, combined with supply concentration, mining impacts, environmental degradation and limited recovery of materials from electronic waste increases exposure to raw material shortages, price volatility and high impact sourcing.Solution pathway: Redesign electronics to last longer, be easier to repair and use more recycled and responsibly sourced materials, reducing dependence on high-risk virgin raw materials and supporting more circular material flows.
Business type: SME / social enterpriseSector: ElectronicsGeography: Netherlands / global supply chains
In Practice
Smartphones rely on dozens of raw materials, including critical minerals and metals that can be exposed to supply concentration, mining impacts, conflict risk, environmental degradation, and rising global demand. As pressure grows on raw material systems, electronics businesses face increasing risks linked to how these materials are sourced, used, and recovered.
Fairphone was created to show that electronics can be designed differently. The company focuses on improving supply chains for priority materials, increasing recycled content, supporting more responsible mining, and designing phones that are easier to repair, and keep in use for longer. Its model reduces pressure on virgin raw materials by extending product life, supporting take-back and recycling systems, and prioritising materials where change can have the greatest social and environmental impact.
This approach benefits customers by making phones easier to repair and keep for longer. It benefits the wider materials system by reducing waste and demand for new extraction. For Fairphone, it creates a distinctive business model built around transparency, durability, and responsible sourcing in a sector often associated with short product lifecycles and opaque supply chains.
