34: Revolutionizing Smartphones: Fairphone's Path to Sustainability and Ethical Tech with Founder Bas van Abel

I'm excited to have Bas van Abel, the founder of Fairphone, with us today In this episode. Bas takes us on the journey of Fairphone from its humble beginnings as an awareness campaign to running the biggest crowdfunding at that time, to its evolution into a pioneering company striving for a systemic change in the smartphone industry. We will explore the core values driving Fairphone, including accessibility, demystifying technology and raising awareness about ethical dilemmas within the electronic supply chain. 

Bas shares his insight into the cultural transition towards sustainability, emphasizing the power of storytelling and an art in driving meaningful change. We will dive deep into the challenges facing the smartphone industry the importance of ownership, the right to repair, and the necessity for companies to disconnect revenue from resource consumption for sustainable growth. Bas also reflects on the personal journey of leadership within Fairphone and the vital role of recognizing when to pivot roles for personal well-being and organizational success. 

Join us as Bas shares his optimism for humanity capacity to address the climate crisis through social and cultural transitions. 

It was a very inspiring conversation which highlights the challenges to tackle and to embrace the opportunities from the path to sustainable. Stay tuned for an insightful conversation filled with entrepreneurial wisdom, passion and a vision for a more sustainable tomorrow.

The following caption has been generated by AI :)
 
What happens when you combine a passion for demystifying technology with a commitment to ethical supply chains? This episode brings you an inspiring conversation with Bas, the founder of Fairphone, who transformed an awareness campaign into a pioneering force in the smartphone industry. Discover how Fairphone's core values of sustainability, accessibility, and the right to repair are not just ideals but actionable strategies challenging the status quo. Bas's unexpected path to entrepreneurship will leave you rethinking the role of purpose-driven innovation in addressing the climate crisis.

Ever thought about what goes into making your smartphone? This episode unravels the complexities of building a device that connects us all, from supplier collaborations to the personal relationship we have with our technology. Bas offers a unique perspective on avoiding phone addiction while discussing the symbolic significance of smartphones as both personal and status objects. Plus, we dive into the appropriate age for children to own their first devices and reflect on sustainability as not just a buzzword, but a necessary investment in our collective future.

Can we achieve societal reset without catastrophic events? Closing this insightful episode, we explore the potential for global transitions driven by cultural change rather than technological fixes or legislation. Bas shares Fairphone's innovative business model, balancing sustainability with growth, and emphasizes the importance of mental health and shared responsibilities among startup founders. Tune in to hear about Fairphone's ambitions, market strategies, and the powerful role of storytelling in fostering a culture of resilience and sustainability.

Please check out show notes and background information: www.sustainnow.ch
Ideas for a podcast episode? Please contact us here: fvw@forestrock.ch

Transcript

Narrator: 0:00

You are listening to Sustain Now. In this podcast, you will learn from successful entrepreneurs and scientists about the newest climate change solutions to address the climate crisis, from food and agri-tech over energy material innovation to circular economy. This non-profit podcast is hosted by Frederica. She is a tech entrepreneur and climate enthusiast. You can find show notes and background information on wwwsustainnowch. Enjoy the show.

Friederike: 0:36

Welcome back to the Sustain Now. I'm excited to have Bas, the founder of Fairphone, with us today In this episode. Bas takes us on the journey of Fairphone with us today. In this episode. Bass takes us on the journey of Fairphone from its humble beginnings as an awareness campaign to running the biggest crowdfunding at that time, to its evolution into a pioneering company striving for a systemic change in the smartphone industry. We will explore the core values driving Fairphone. We will explore the core values driving Fairphone, including accessibility, demystifying technology and raising awareness about ethical dilemmas within the electronic supply chain.

Friederike: 1:16

Bas shares insight into the cultural transition towards sustainability, emphasizing the power of storytelling and an art in driving meaningful change. We will dive deep into the challenges facing the smartphone industry the importance of ownership and the right to repair, and the necessity for companies to disconnect revenue from resource consumption for sustainable growth. Bas also reflects on the personal journey of leadership within Fairphone and the vital role of recognizing when to pivot roles for personal well-being and organizational success. Join us as Bas shares his optimism for humanity capacity to address the climate crisis through social and cultural transitions. It was a very inspiring conversation which highlights the challenges to tackle and to embrace the opportunities from the path to sustainable. Stay tuned for an insightful conversation filled with entrepreneurial wisdom, passion and a vision for a more sustainable tomorrow. Let's dive in. Thank you so much for joining my podcast today, na Welcome.

Bas van Abel: 2:28

Oh yeah, Welcome. I'm happy to be here.

Friederike: 2:32

Today, actually, we will chat about a technology which lies in our hands every day A smartphone developed by the brand Fairphone, and Fast is the founder of the 10-year-old company. The question is how can you make a smartphone more sustainable, hence more durable? These questions I would like to discuss with Bas today. Starting first, like you know, I think you've been a founder for quite some time and I read some background how you actually went there. It's an amazing story. So, when you look back on your life, what has been your driving force to become a founder and develop a sustainable phone?

Bas van Abel: 3:07

Yeah, it's funny you say that it's 10 years ago. It's 11 years ago now already that we started a company, but definitely actually didn't start as a company. We started as a campaign and that was in 2011. So we campaigned for two years and then we decided to do a company. I'm saying that because, you know, just going back, it has never been my ambition to become an entrepreneur. Ah, okay.

Bas van Abel: 3:34

I've been a lot of things. I've studied arts, you know. I've done art school. I've done mechanical engineering. I've been in technology for a very long time Innovation using innovation, social innovation, using technology in the social cultural context, in the media lab, always non-profit. And my drive has always been how to make technology more accessible because it's driving a lot of change in the social, cultural setting, our economy and all that it's like an important driver for, for for culture.

Bas van Abel: 4:05

Yeah, I think I always wanted to kind of demystify technology. I think that already started when I was young. I had my screwdriver. If I got a Nintendo, most of the kids probably would start playing the Nintendo. I took the screwdriver to see what's inside the Nintendo and that drove me to really look at you know, where does technology come from? How do we use it? What kind of effects has it on society? But also, do we really need to develop the things that we develop? Because sometimes it's also, you know, the critical aspect that lacks in the way that we see innovation. So that, yeah, so that background of my curiosity, combined with my criticism towards technology, drove to start Art Fairphone as a company. And why a company? Because at that moment we were campaigning already for two years to raise awareness around the problems in the supply chain of technology, electronics and phones particularly. Yeah, we decided that the best way to sustain that, also economically, was to do it as a company and try to create the impact from within the system that we were trying to change.

Friederike: 5:14

And that's how I became an entrepreneur. By accident.

Bas van Abel: 5:17

By accident it's often like that. Well, even reluctantly sometimes, I have to say.

Friederike: 5:23

That's probably the best entrepreneurs, because they come with purpose and with driving force to do something. But what? Has been the sparking idea. If I'm thinking about 10 years ago, you know there was climate. I think it was on the horizon, but for many not really clear that you know, sustainability, etc. It's only developed, I would say, in the last five, six, seven years. Really, how did you come on the idea that you say, okay, this is something we need to change. We need to build mobile phones differently.

Bas van Abel: 5:53

Yeah, I think that goes back to the core theory of change, as we call that within Fairphone and our company. Right, a lot of the impact startups or impact companies, they start because they want to create a systemic change and not just, you know, to make a phone or not just to make a more sustainable phone. We really use that to change the system. And I think you know, if you look at our theory of change, it's really raising awareness, and campaigning is at the core of what we do, because there are many problems attached to to you know, how technology is made, specifically phones. But the problem is, if you raise awareness and we, when we started fair phone with that thought, you know, raising awareness around the conflict, minerals and also the labor conditions, sky chain and the throwaway culture. It's always good to have a like a bad guy or to have a solution, and we didn't have, you know, we didn't have either of that. So then the next step and that didn't have, you know we didn't have either of that. So then the next step and that is that is, you know, that is our theory. We say, well, we, we, we show how you can do things in a different way, either by making multiple phones by doing different ways of mining your minerals, but then you're not there yet. You also want to show that with those things that you do, that it's scalable and then you can create a bigger impact.

Bas van Abel: 7:04

So that is, that is, I think, why we started at the point where there was not awareness around the problem, but the problem existed. There is child labor in the supply chains of electronics and there's all in all supply chains and what we see with food, what we see with cosmetics, you know, on sustainable cosmetics, effect rate, bananas, all these things. You know they started in the 70s, 80s. But you have the same problems in electronics. It's just not visible. And we've closed technology as kind of a black box. And I had been working in that context already for a while. You know open source software development. I've been very, very connected with what they call the makers movement.

Bas van Abel: 7:42

I think that drove very, you know, to do this at a very interesting moment where there was no awareness yet. But people recognize the problems. So once we started opening that box of all the problems in the supply chain, people oh shit, really, even the name, right, fair phone. What is what is unfair about phones, right? So why are you fair and others not, and that that just makes you think. Then you know that that awareness, we try to channel that towards actually taking action. And for us that was a product, so in a way that was a perfect way to you know it was. It was also in a marketing sense, very nice, because your campaigning was was also the the, the promotion of the solution, which was the products, and then the products showed that things could be done differently and we could inspire the industry to also join us.

Bas van Abel: 8:30

So it was a great moment in that sense that it wasn't yet on the radar because it was picked up by CNN and Al Jazeera and all these guys when we started surfacing the problems because nobody was talking about it, but it is a big issue.

Friederike: 8:41

So, if I understand you right, first you campaigned about the problems like what kind of minerals you use, how it's getting extracted, how actually waste is getting produced, and I think the number is enormous what kind of electronic waste we throw away every year, I think. I forgot how big it was, it was insane and how much value we actually throw away of minerals and materials every year.

Bas van Abel: 9:05

Yeah, I think they always compare it with Eiffel Towers, right.

Friederike: 9:09

How many Eiffel Towers Exactly? I forgot how many. Yeah, it's a lot exactly. And it's actually that you have such a value that you throw away every year not thinking about that you can actually reuse it. I think it's really astonishing. So you used like kind of the campaigning of the problem to create a momentum for that product, but it was not intentional. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Bas van Abel: 9:34

Yeah, actually funny thing is that, like I said, we started as a campaign and with my open source, open hardware kind of framework thinking framework, I thought we're going to go to Congo because the easiest part is the phone. Why? Because phone is already being made. The hard part is to understand what I would like to call the dark matter behind the phones. What makes a product is basically the sociocultural-economical context in which we work together to create something that we would never be able to do as an individual, which is in itself already amazing. We are able to make stuff from the soil, from the ground, from minerals together, and we would never be able to even understand the complexity of a phone as an individual, and still those projects are made. So that beautiful kind of aspect was also the starting point of surfacing. Projects are made, so that beautiful kind of aspect was also the starting point of surfacing. And so it was not just only the. You know, the showing the problems was also showing the beauty of, of what we are capable of together. And we used that also to create like a platform for people to to talk about it.

Bas van Abel: 10:40

And once people started talking and talking, what you saw is that people were like, okay, great, you know your fair phone and you say you're going to build a Fairphone was more like a campaign idea to put it into reality. And then people really started asking when is that phone available? And then we started. I remember Miguel was my intern. He's still working at Fairphone as well, so he called the co-founder of Fairphone. But Miguel was just collecting the email addresses of people that were interested intern is still working at Fairphone as well. So you call the co-founder of Fairphone, but Miguel was just collecting the email addresses of people that were interested and we were hitting like the 30 40 000 people already that sat and we just put a button there if Fairphone would be available, would you buy it, register here. And people started registering. And then we thought, well, you know we have to build it now we're out of campaigning.

Bas van Abel: 11:23

We're out of campaigning money, right? We're out of the subsidies, so we need to survive on our own. So what do you do? Well, you set up a crowdfunding and you start selling phones to create a sustainable company as well. And I think that it was not just because of the financial situation. The main reason was because we saw that there was that momentum to be able to go one step further than raising awareness, but actually offering a solution. Yeah, and that's when we started the crowdfunding campaign.

Friederike: 11:52

And I think that crowdfunding campaign was one of the largest, I think at that time right.

Bas van Abel: 11:58

We've never talked about it because we didn't want to make it about the money at the time. Again, what we did is we didn't use a platform or anything. We just put a button on the website. We, we had a, an e-shop like this. Uh, you know, at the time you could just like, I think, like shopify or these kind of big platforms. You just had a shop with all the payment providers, everything connected to it, already like an etsy, and we put the phone, the phone there, and we said this is a fair phone and and you can, if you pay €325 now, we will ship it in half a year probably.

Bas van Abel: 12:30

And people started paying and what happened is that within like two, three months, we had €7.5 million on our bank account and the non-existing phones, because we ran out of the non-existing phones, because we were only going to use 25,000 and the non-existing phones were being sold on eBay for double the price. So it was a madness, right, but we knew that, wow, this is really. There is a demand for ethical electronics, for sustainable electronics. And that was also the moment where I turned from an artist, engineer, designer. I'd been everything except an entrepreneur and, yeah, it made me like I was at a point that I wanted to pay back everybody their money Because I thought, like, let's not let somebody else do it. We made a point that the campaign is successful. People just told me, like you have to do this, you will never get a chance like this and people that bought that phone. They don't expect you to do it, perfect, right away, but they show that they are committed to what you want and that is how the crowdfunding started. We were at the time.

Friederike: 13:42

I think, at least in Europe, the biggest crowdfunding ever Without using a crowdfunding platform.

Bas van Abel: 13:45

Yeah, so it wasn't registered. And we did another crowdfunding later for 10 million, another 2.5 million, so I found that I crowdfunded more than 20 million in the first couple of years of Fairphone and that was also great because we were able to build an electronics company, a capital heavy company, without any venture capital or investments that was needed. So we were very independent and that was great to be able to build our own impact model and goals and everything and keep the brand really sticking to that mission.

Friederike: 14:18

I want to come back to the crowdfunding later on, but now what strived me before what you just said is it's fascinating that we can build a phone which is so complex, with multiple suppliers, people, resources in place, that we can actually create that together. And I would say that that's kind of a connection. You know you create connection between people, resources, materials, etc. To build a product which you know will connect other people. And I think one of the funny things what I read in another interview is that you know you actually avoided having your own phone.

Bas van Abel: 14:55

That's who you read that.

Friederike: 14:56

Yeah, and I thought that was brilliant like building a phone but avoiding having your own phone. I thought you read that yeah, and I thought that was brilliant like building a phone but avoiding having your own phone. So my question is what does connectivity mean to you?

Bas van Abel: 15:07

It's an interesting one. Just to go back to the phone, I did like technology, right, I did go into technology a lot and I knew a bit about phones and how they work. But I've always avoided phones because, yeah, I thought if I go into a phone I'll get addicted to this stuff because I'm going to be connected all the time, that's what I'm going to do and I'm not connected anymore with the actual environment I'm in. So I was afraid I already saw my work addiction with emails and everything and I thought, well, let's keep that phone out of my life as long as possible, because I'm pretty sure it will have a negative impact from all the stuff it does as well. So I think it took me up to Fairphone 2 to actually have my own phone. I used my Fairphone 1 as an MP3 player and there was no SIM card in there. Ever, as a CEO of a phone company, you need to have your own product to show right. So I had it. And when I really switched was when they tore down at the central stations in Holland, when they tore down all the phone booths because I didn't have any chance anymore to call my partner if I'd be late and she had to pick up the kids from the daycare because I couldn't so and I was fed up asking people their phone to be able to reach her. So in that sense, you know, it brought me something as well, the connectivity when you talk about it.

Bas van Abel: 16:33

But yeah, from a symbolic point of view, I think what is why we chose the phone is because it's such a beautiful paradox. Right, it's the most personal object that we have, what used to be cars. They call it badge value. You throw your BMW key on the table and everybody goes, oh wow, you know what happens with phones. I think we're getting to the point that even that is going to pass, but at that time it was really a status symbol, personality. You know, I, I, yeah, there's a lot of connect with that product in such a weird way as an extension of themselves. You know, you get panic attacks when they leave the house without. You know mobile phone phobia. It's like shit, it's a fan when you don't have your phone with you and then not in that relationship, but not knowing what's happening behind the scenes. Who made it? Where does it come from, all the work that goes in? That is an amazing paradox and a lot.

Friederike: 17:34

It's very rich to explore as well, even from an anthropological, cultural, economical point of view and if you look back now, so you have it for quite some time now. The phone, how do you, how is your relationship now to a phone?

Bas van Abel: 17:48

I was able to avoid a lot of things also, very, very so what I? Yeah, it took me until like two months ago to install WhatsApp on my phone, so I still I'm probably one of the last to install it, but I do have you know, I do use the phone a lot and I probably use it too much. On the other hand, I also see the benefit of it and of course, you know now it's integrated in everything. So it's, you know, my relationship with the phone. I think is quite healthy in that sense that, yeah, that I use it for practical reasons, but not, you know, I still enjoy also the moment and I see, you know, being social can be online. I'm not saying that you can't have like connections online are not useful or worth something or valuable, but I think I get more value from actually meeting people.

Friederike: 18:39

You have kids, right I?

Bas van Abel: 18:40

have three kids, yeah.

Friederike: 18:41

Yeah, exactly so you know there's a lot of discussion right now about phones, smartphones with kids, etc. When did you give your children a smartphone?

Bas van Abel: 18:50

Yeah, I think it was Fairphone 3, or Fairphone 2. No, it was Fairphone 2. I have to admit, I also saw them a bit as an advertisement opportunity.

Friederike: 19:04

How old were they when you gave them one?

Bas van Abel: 19:06

Yeah, they were. I think they were around 13, 14, something like that.

Friederike: 19:12

So actually quite late compared to.

Bas van Abel: 19:14

I don't know how that is.

Friederike: 19:16

I just read about a study. Like 40% of all seven-year-olds already have a phone.

Bas van Abel: 19:21

Yeah, I think my youngest got the phone before that, maybe at primary school already. Yeah, so it really depends. Yeah, it really depends. My oldest kid is already 21, so what does sustainability mean for you personally?

Bas van Abel: 19:38

Yeah, that's a nice one, I think. You know, for me it's a philosophical matter, right, I had this beautiful ending slide of a guy who was giving a presentation I don't know where anymore, but he ended this whole presentation about sustainability and everything with. Survival is not mandatory, and what I really liked about that is that I don't think nature or ecology, whatever, will give a shit about what happens, right, because either we go extinct or we do this. So sustainability to me is a matter of our own survival and it's a human, more philosophical matter of do we want to invest into something that's bigger than my own life? Now it's getting more and more. You see also the effects in your own life, but sustainability has always also been about something that's bigger than your own life and that means that you have to, and it's very human to have that kind of problem right that you you have to, you know, and it's very human to have that kind of problem right, because one of the biggest problem being human dilemma is the balance between your self-interest and common interest. You know, what's good for me is not always good for everyone what's good for everyone. So this, and I think we're very well capable of thinking about building upon what we've done in generations, especially when you know in the times that religion, religion was very important. We also saw. You know that that's that the continuity of time and and your own life is is part of a bigger thing.

Bas van Abel: 21:05

And the problem now is that we've gone very individualistic, very materialistic, and we, we know that whole view has become like, okay, what can I do in my own time on earth? And I think, I think you know it really comes with a lot of cultural trend. You know we need a cultural transition to get out of that kind of thinking. I think, if you really look and there was a quote of guest gus speth he's one of the top advisors on the ipvc reports and these things and and he's been researching the researching sustainability for all his life and he said, always thought that the biggest environmental problems were biodiversity loss, global warming, you know that kind of stuff, and I thought we could solve that with good science, right, but boy was I wrong.

Bas van Abel: 21:46

The biggest top environmental problems that we're dealing with are greed, apathy, you know, and the likes and selfishness. You cannot solve that with science. You cannot solve that with technology. You cannot solve that with science. You cannot solve that with with technology. You cannot solve that with all this, you know, legislation, only you need a cultural transition for that, and that's why I think of sustainability to me is about culture, and how do we get to a culture of, yeah, of, of, of wanting to also survive as as, as a, as a kind, and I think that connection we kind of lost. But I'm, I'm hopeful that that you know that we can get there, and maybe it's my, my artist background speaking there, because I think art has also really huge impact on, on creating.

Friederike: 22:31

You know that that kind of transition, cultural transition that you need in order to to, you know, yeah, survive so when I, when I hear you speaking about it for me, it comes in my mind, leaving like a positive legacy of your life yeah, sure, and I don't want to be inside.

Bas van Abel: 22:49

I'm always, I'm always a bit reluctant to, to say to, to be too didactical about it, because I I don't. You know, a cultural transition doesn't come from telling other people how things should be. I think we can do that by example and we can create stories. Like, if you just look at politics, you know, in the end, politics is about being able to convey a good story about the future.

Bas van Abel: 23:14

Entrepreneurship, especially social entrepreneurship, is about making people believe, or getting people behind you, creating a vision or a story of something that's not there yet. It's about explaining things that, yeah, that are about feelings, about value, and I think, you know, storytelling in that sense is an important element to get to, to get to get further, and I, I, yeah, I do believe that we get there. And also, like I said, so, even the company is selling something that's not there yet. That's something I've learned. The power of that, the power of that story is, is, is huge. Uh, we just have to find out the right stories in order to, to get, to create a collaborative point of thinking around survival, because I'm just studying other people like you, can't do this because we, we won't survive.

Friederike: 24:01

I don't think that's the way how does your yeah, you do it. You do, sorry, you do it. It's not the only way. The only way, how does your life motto fits to that? So I was reading it and I was like, if you can't open it, you don't own it, and I really try to figure out what it means.

Bas van Abel: 24:16

But please explain yeah, that goes very easy. That goes back to my experience as my, you know, as a kid, with the screwdriver. Yeah, I, I, you know it's, it's. I've. I've had this instance where I had my, my son.

Bas van Abel: 24:28

We're going on holiday, the car was fully packed, two kids were in the car, one was missing. Everybody was ready to go to france and I went into the house and bo was, uh, you know, my old kid was sobbing. He was crying in the corner of the house with his Nintendo in hand. The Nintendo was broken and it was quite a stressful moment because the, you know, nintendo was the love of his life and for me, you know, we keep him busy in the car. So I was like shit, how are we going to do this? But look, you know, I have an engineering background. So I told, well, I'll fix it.

Bas van Abel: 24:56

I took my screwdriver, screwing, screwing, and at some point the the metal dust you know, fell out of the screw holes. And if the metal dust comes falling out of the screws, you know, you screwed up the screws and I found out that, and then and you're screwed right, you're really screwed if that happens. But I found out that nintendo does not want me to open that device, so what? They use a special kind of screwdriver. So it really was symbolic for me around why do companies create devices where you cannot even open it in order to fix it?

Bas van Abel: 25:30

And I think, if you really go back to that cultural transition, I think that is needed is that need to really re-establish a healthy relationship with the products that we use. Otherwise you can't expect people to use products longer. How can you care for a product that you don't give a shit about, that you can't even open, that you can't own? And ownership in this sense is about not like the property side, but really the connection to that product and I think symbolically side, but really the connection to that product. And I think symbolically it's very important to be able to get that screwdriver open of the device and feel and explore how these products have been made and how beautiful it is that we have these complex products and the amount of effort that went into it.

Friederike: 26:14

So that's where it comes from.

Bas van Abel: 26:16

It is a quote that comes from Very good connected.

Friederike: 26:17

Actually, it comes from a quote that comes from Very good connected actually.

Bas van Abel: 26:19

Yeah, it comes from a quote that is from the makers community. Yeah, it was a magazine called Megzin and it was a maker magazine where they explained how to make your own this, on that, on that you know all the stuff that you can think about how to make it yourself and especially also with technology, how to make your robots and playing and this and that and their motto was if you can't open it, you don't own it, because they were already at that time and it was when, in the 2000s, fighting for the right to repair and the right to actually have access to the technology that we use so just to rephrase it, so for you, you know, like that you can actually open a phone, like if you take that over to Fairphone.

Friederike: 27:00

If you can open a phone, if you can, you know, use the screws, make it open and actually exchange elements of it and really repair it yourself or have the ability to repair, then you actually own the product and you can make, make it durable. Is that what you think why the smartphone industry is broken? Because it's like you don't have the ownership. It's just a rental, leasing model kind of way that you can lease it somewhere from the big companies. You have to give it away. You can't really actually do anything with it.

Bas van Abel: 27:30

No, I think there's definitely more to that. There's a system problem in the electronics industry and that's also how we approach it. As Fairphone, you can make the most repairable phone you want and you can make it with all kinds of easy exchangeable parts that you can use for a very, very long time. But if the whole industry is built around short cycles, selling as much as possible in a very short time, it's very hard for a company to survive in that industry. That's for sure. But it's also if people don't use their phone longer because they are pushed or also lured into buying that new shiny model, it is going to be a very difficult thing. So you can't just make a repairable phone if you don't put the context where the phones can actually be, where the industry is also forced to to, to change their way of positioning the products and offering support. And also you need to, you know, you need to create, in a way, a that healthy kind of connection with because, yeah, with people using the phones and and I think that's where again, where storytelling, you know it's very important that also showing what we do behind the screens and how you know how a phone is made. You know I told you about the crowdfunding at the time that people waited for the phone to be made. We were actually showing how the phone was made and for them that was like you know, wow, my, I see, I see like how, how, my, how a product I've never seen before, how, how it's made. I see it into the whole context of how it comes from the ground into this beautiful product.

Bas van Abel: 29:03

And I think all those things legislation, making companies move, making a product design in a certain way, but definitely also the business model that you put upon it. Because in the end, we know, you get to the sustainability philosophical dilemma again. We know, as Fairphone, the more phones we sell, the worse it is for the environment, the more phones we produce, sorry. So you want to produce as little phones as possible. At one side you don't want people to buy a phone if they don't need it, but on the other side, as a company, you need to survive to sell these products. So then you know, I think sustainability becomes very interesting when it becomes a dilemma and a paradox, and not so much that win-win everybody believes is the only way right, because I think win-win is just doing business. If sustainability and financial pain is just straightforwardly a win-win. Great, just do it.

Friederike: 29:59

But it becomes interesting when there's a dilemma I had the framework founder who's creating laptops you know like exactly repairable laptops, and he said on my podcast I asked him exactly about that dilemma and his answer was you know? The answer is we need to half the electronic market size. That's his ambition. So we need to make the market smaller and I think that was a very good yeah, I would rephrase it maybe a bit into that.

Bas van Abel: 30:28

I think it's a great, it's a very great, provocative way of putting it.

Bas van Abel: 30:34

I just think that it's not necessarily about the market in terms of the revenues.

Bas van Abel: 30:40

It's about how do you disconnect the way you make money from the use of resources.

Bas van Abel: 30:48

And if you're able to halve that or even more, we could even make a phone, using it for 10 years and offering a service to upgrade your software after five years and keeping it longer. It's in the benefit of people because it costs you less and it's in the benefit of the company to actually make money on the software side instead of making a new phone. So I think it forces you also to think about new ways of making money, and that makes it so interesting. When you have these conflicting kind of things, they always look like a paradox, a dilemma. But once you go into it and you start mapping your company around those dilemmas and facts and look at your business model, you might find out that there are other ways to make money in a way that's much more sustainable. As long as you challenge yourself to look at these solutions and not just find out that you're in a linear system, you can't get out coming now to fairphone a little bit more in detail.

Friederike: 31:45

So after 10 years, I think you're now at fairphone 5 I think that was the newest term which came out. Where is the company's standing right now?

Bas van Abel: 31:53

yeah, it's a profitable company, which is great in this industry. We sold over half a million phones in our total lifetime. We sell around, you know, over 100 000 phones a year. It's around 150 people working at Fairphone. We have a revenue of around 50 million and we are recognized by the industry and all the ratings and everything as the most sustainable phone and also the most sustainable company, because I think that's an important distinction, because there's so many people that ask me what makes Fairphone different from Apple if they make a sustainable phone. Making a sustainable product doesn't make you sustainable or an impact-driven company, and I've seen that happening. If you have five Teslas in one family, you have five sustainable products in your family Great, but what does Tesla do to prevent that family from buying so many cars? I wonder, right, I wonder. I've been in in calls with with with the big guys and I always wonder like, how much effort are they putting into making sure that they don't make products that are not needed?

Friederike: 32:58

it's gonna make a follow-up because it's a very nice point about the sustainability. What makes you actually different is that you actually are sustainable as a company. So what are you doing then, let's say, different. Or what are you focusing as a company on sustainability besides the phone?

Bas van Abel: 33:14

You asked me where the company is right now. Right, so we're at that point that we actually are still yeah, we're doing well, we're doing okay, but it's still a small company in this industry and we need to grow. So that's what I wanted to conclude on that one. Our ambition is really to grow the company, not just because we want to be bigger, but we know we can make more impact. Sure, but we also are vulnerable when you stay small in this industry. You know you're playing with the. We're playing in the most, probably one of the most competitive industries in in this, uh, in this world. So, yeah, so so that is, we're doing good, but we need to grow even further to to survive in this industry and how do you want to solve that paradox?

Friederike: 33:56

and you said once is the business model that you actually can, you know, earn money as well with other parts. I think I saw the subscription model you're doing with repairments, etc. So how, how do you, if you would say like this is the three steps plan of fairphone and saying like this is how we want to grow sustainability, can you share that? Like, what are the three points you think you need to focus in future to actually make it happen to grow and be sustainable at the same time?

Bas van Abel: 34:25

yeah, yeah, I think we do that also through through setting conflicting kpis into the company. Quite proud of that, because one of the things that we've done is that we embrace the dilemma of this. One of the kpis is sell as many phones as possible. The other kpi and and also from a revenue point of view, make make as much revenue as possible. It's great. We show it as a market. You want to grow, we need that. So it's not an ambition in itself to be the biggest, but it's something we need. So we set that as a KPI. It also shows impact.

Bas van Abel: 34:53

But the other KPI is that we say we want people to use their phone as long as possible. And I can tell you that is kind of a bomb in the head of a salesperson, because people that sell products and salespeople at Fairphone what you normally do as a salesperson is you sell to your current customers. It's the easiest. If there's a new product, you throw it out to all the customers saying we have a new product, please buy it. We can't do that at Fairphone because we just want to sell to people that really need that phone, because we want them to use the phone as long as possible. So that's where we also embrace the consequences of that, and it pushes us to go into innovations like pair phone as a service, because we wanted to try out. Can we make money on a different way, where we align longevity with the way we make money? A service model does that, because the longer you use your phone, you get a monthly pay and you want people to use the phone as long as possible because it costs you money. If you have to make a new one, I can tell you it didn't work right, it didn't work as we wanted. But that's why you have to, because we would have never done this test if we hadn't had that dilemma in the company.

Bas van Abel: 36:06

So how do we want to grow? So your question is we want to grow in a way that we try to find out how to disconnect our business model as much as possible from the user resources while also increasing our market, and that is super difficult. But it's a challenge that we took upon us and, yeah, we're doing that. I mean we do grow every year and we show that we actually have people keep their phone twice as long, which reduces the footprint of the phone with more than 30%. We've done a lifecycle assessment on it really external one, they looked at it. We've done a lifecycle assessment on it really external one, they looked at it.

Bas van Abel: 36:43

It is ridiculous that if you use the phone twice as long that you have such a positive impact there's no use of. You might even say, just focus on longevity and then you have that huge win. So that is the way that we want to grow and that involves these kind of dilemmas and you can say, well, we have the solution for it. I don't. I don't have the solution to that dilemma. The only solution I see is to make it a part of the operating system, the thinking of your company, so that you are challenged to innovate in a way that it fits with the future.

Friederike: 37:25

Where are you available right now? Are you in the whole europe? Available already or even more like? Is where? What markets are you in?

Bas van Abel: 37:29

oh, we are in the whole of europe, but our main markets are, yeah, germany. Almost half of our funds go to germany is, yeah, something we found out when we did the crowdfunding. We didn't expect it, but but germany, france, holland and the uk, and and Switzerland is funny, because they have, I think, the highest fair fund penetration. It's a small market but there's a lot of fair funds that are sold as well in Switzerland. But, yeah, those are the main markets, but we only do Europe, not the US. We're available in Taiwan, okay why Taiwan?

Bas van Abel: 38:04

Because our team is there, our partners are there production partners and we wanted to yeah, we wanted to see if we also could create value, yeah, in the markets that we're actually also producing.

Friederike: 38:17

Wow, so quite a journey you have been doing and I think it's very interesting that you are so openly about the paradox of sustainable growth. And, you know, is that win-win situation really possible to be super sustainable in the same time? On super growth, you started as well like I think now it's new, it's new product lines, right, like is, is. Is that a way you want to expand?

Bas van Abel: 38:40

Yeah, that's one of the ways to also diversify, to spread the risk a bit. If you have only one product We've had ones that we had two components missing and if there's a component shortage in the industry, you're lost in line. We're a small company Not anymore, by the way, because they love us. It's really. It's one of the advantages of being in that company that even though you're small, you see, in the industry people want you to succeed as well, because they find it very interesting. It's also a way to create revenue without having to sell more phones to people that already have a phone, so you can actually sell additional products and you can.

Bas van Abel: 39:22

It's a's. It's a very business way, a business way of looking at it, and it's also, in the end, it's. It's also impact right, because we, even with the headphones, like the ones I'm wearing now they're fully repairable have the same ethical supply chain that we use for for the phones and it's you know, it's also novel. We have in-ear headphones, thatear headphones that you can just replace the battery within half a minute, and in the headphone industry that was also a bomb, like, wait a minute. There goes our business model if you start doing that. So I think it's nice to have an impact also in these accessories market for two reasons. One, it's good for revenues for us, but it's also to really drive change in a bigger industry.

Friederike: 40:09

So you know you're doing this now 11 years, and I think what I learned from you is that you actually stepped down as a CEO in 2018, right?

Bas van Abel: 40:18

Yeah, I did. Yeah, yeah, I'm still on the board, so I'm still involved.

Friederike: 40:25

But as a CEO it was. Yeah, I hit the end of the wall. Yeah, you've been very open in questions about your mental health struggle and think health struggle. I think that's very impressive and my hat's to you that you're doing that. If you think about the last 11 years and if you could roll back and saying like, okay, if I have to restart it again, what would you do differently?

Bas van Abel: 40:48

When I get this question, I always say, well, I would do it. If the question is like, would you do it again, I'd say yes. Or would you do it, yeah, would you do it if you could do it? If you were at the start of it, yes, I'd do it, but I wouldn't do it another time because I don't have the energy anymore. I would definitely do it differently, but I think the fact that I was like kind of naive also made it that we we got into you know that it was not just me but everybody involved and I think the first team. Nobody had made a phone ever before and was.

Bas van Abel: 41:17

It was also an advantage for us, but it came with a cost in terms of personal health, because you know, when you do something you've never done before and you do that every day and you do that long enough, it wears you out. You can't fall back on how you're used to the things you can't fall back on. Experience is maybe, yeah, starting with a as a startup, also with several founders who are all in the board, right, so that you're not the only one with responsibility. I took the responsibility as a CEO from the start, not CEO, but I mean as a director of the company for the first five, six years alone, up to like a revenue of like 20, 30 million and with all the you know, all the cash flow problems, all the risks that come with everything and also the loneliness that comes with it.

Bas van Abel: 42:10

I have learned that it, yeah, that that would have helped if I had shared that responsibility in a way. I don't know exactly the several ways of doing that, but that was one of the things that I I would definitely do different, no-transcript balance. I think it's. It's. It's an illusion, I think it's. I. I think if you, if you will not have a very healthy work-life balance, I think, right, maybe I'm doing it all wrong, but I've have never experienced any people who are in startups that that have a have that in a healthy way.

Bas van Abel: 42:58

But what you can do is prepare yourself for that and build in also more strict moments where you can ventilate with other people I don't say like maybe maybe you should have entrepreneurs anonymous to groups to talk about all the all, yeah, all the the things that that make you lonely and it's actually the eo organization.

Friederike: 43:19

Do you know that entrepreneur organization? Oh there is yeah, well, I think, I think I would.

Bas van Abel: 43:23

I would have been helped actually to to be more part of that. But the problem is, I can do.

Friederike: 43:28

I have the time for it and it's such pressure.

Bas van Abel: 43:30

you you're flying a plane while building it and you don't know, like, how to fly, and that is, it is scary and it just gets to your health and maybe I should have stopped earlier and it's also a thing that I could have done as a CEO, or maybe you know there's all kinds of things, but I definitely went too far. And it brings me to. You asked me for a quote as well. I love that quote from Dan Horovich.

Bas van Abel: 43:53

He wrote a book. It's called the Hard Things, about Hard Things, and it's about this right, it's about that track you're in as a startup founder or something. That's the ball that starts rolling and if it goes well, it gets scary, and if it goes bad, it gets also scary. So it just gets more and more pressure, whatever it does. And he said, as a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried and cried. I think it really shows that in a certain way, you're going to be torn by private life, by family and work, this and that, and just be prepared for it. I think trying to avoid it is going to be very hard, but trying to give yourself support in that is very important and I think the naivety, naivety, that's everything what's this?

Friederike: 44:50

yeah, I think that's also very important to go into. So you're, you're, you're half a pair, but you're also quite naive about what it actually means.

Bas van Abel: 44:59

Otherwise, I think it's the same with kids no one will get kids, oh yeah yeah, and then and then and then, when, when there's good times, you say, well, it's not that bad, right, we forget easily, we forget easily, but it's but, but, yeah, it's for me, for me, uh, what one of the things. But so this is, it was not just my mental health, why I? I said you know it's enough, I need to stop this. You know, I always compare a bit with football. Right, if you have 10 little kids playing football, they run after the ball and they all want to score.

Bas van Abel: 45:32

I'm a bit like that. I love that, I just want to. You know the action, I am an actionist. It's also the entrepreneurial side of me. You just run up to the ball. You want to score. At a certain point I had to be in position. And if you're in position, well, you know it gets a bit like why can't I be where the action is right? You have to stay and wait until you, you can be part of it. And once you get into a bigger company and it grows further, the company becomes like you being on the sidelines when you're in the board. It's really felt like it, like you know, there's the action is in and everything you can scream from the sidelines yeah, don't do that.

Bas van Abel: 46:06

When the shit hits the fan, you can solve it and and maybe I've done it wrong, but it felt like that. So for me, for me, that that was, yeah, also the point where I said, okay, let's not. You know, this is not the the phase of the company where I'd like to be in as a CEO. I'd love to be at the sideline now as a supervisory board member. So I am, in a way, at the sideline, but it's a totally different role and I love that because I also can.

Bas van Abel: 46:35

You know, it's so great to see that company grow and also even the problems I can actually learn from it without you know that response of I can't breathe because you're in the shit. And now, when you look at it from a distance, it's very valuable to learn from how other people are doing it. And actually I found it, I think, the other way around. But, yeah, it's a nice journey and I'm happy I took that step and, like we said, it was not just my health, but it was also not the phase that I would add most value to the company as a CEO.

Friederike: 47:12

And I think that's a big learning to know what role to play, as you nicely said, in a team and to recognize that when does the role have to shift to something else. I think that's a very very nice way to say it.

Bas van Abel: 47:26

Yeah, it's important and I think there's other ways. Most of the CEOs, especially tech companies, are being involuntarily leave the company, especially when there's investors. I read something because I was really like this is stupid. You have this image of Zuckerberg and this guy and Musk as a founder. You have to stay on forever. It's really bullshit. If you look at the numbers, there's only one out of five founders CEOs that are still CEO after five years in the company and probably three of those four that left are being sacked or whatever you want to call it.

Bas van Abel: 48:07

So it's also like it's just not the reality and I think it's important to know that things might be different than they look and that imposter syndrome that you're feeling I had that at least a lot especially when you're being involved with and and uh, you know, and your company's burning. That it's not weird to have that and that's you know, and a lot of people have that, and I think that is that that's a valuable thing to know when you're in it. That's yeah, that you can.

Friederike: 48:39

You can talk about that nice, and I think it's very important to be so open about it that other side of the glory of entrepreneurship is also the hardship which comes with working hard, but also mental hardship. I really like that, how you were open and describe it about it. I have one last question, because I think I could ask a lot of more questions, but I have one last question which I ask everyone what?

Bas van Abel: 49:09

makes you confident that we will solve the climate crisis. Oh, if it makes you confident, well, first of all, does make me confident. Yeah, I think so. I'm. I'm an altruist, right. I believe in the, in the social capabilities of people and I, I truly do. I see how much beautiful things we can, and it goes back to, also, we are able to make such a beautiful, complex product as a phone. We should be able to solve that problem, right, because we have the ingenuity to do so.

Bas van Abel: 49:35

And, in the end, the economic system which is at the core of the problem, I believe, is created by humans and it's more of a social. People think it's more of a social, you know, people think it's a. It's like, uh, it's like a financial or almost a physics kind of system that we put in place, but it's, it's. It's basically, you know, a social construct so we can change that. I wonder if we are, are, yeah, fast enough to do that? But if we're not, then you know there's, there's all kinds of shit that can happen that will help us to reset where we need to be and unfortunately, in history, when you look at it, most of the resets have been done after there's been a global world war.

Bas van Abel: 50:12

Do we let it come that far? I hope not. How do we have the means and the tools and the mindset, hopefully, to do that? I think we are quite close to be able to do it without getting into a very disastrous situation which is going to be very painful for a lot of people but will create also a new start to a new world. But yeah, it might be a very black ending for you, but I'd like to go back to that quote, that quote that you, that, that we, we also discussed what I've mentioned before, and that is survival is not mandatory. We need to want it and I believe that we can get to that. But you know, I I also believe that that involves a sociocultural transition, more than a technological solution or a legislation or you know whatever kind of stuff we can come up with, which all post-capitalist, neoliberal kind of same same nice.

Friederike: 51:13

I think I will leave that to that light nice, a little bit dark, but still nice. Last quote, and thank you so much for joining my podcast. It was really amazing speaking with you.

Bas van Abel: 51:25

All right, I was happy to do it. Thank you for inviting me.

Friederike: 51:31

Thank you for joining today's episode. You can find the show notes, background materials and contact details of our guests on our website, sustainnowch. Follow and share our podcast on any platform available. Do you have a comment or interesting solution to take a deep dive? Please don't hesitate to go to our website, sustainnowch, and write us an email.