Happiness footprinting to help a pre-crisis relic

Posted on July 4, 2010

Have you seen the app which takes your photo and makes it look like you’re really fat? Yes. And the game where you land all the planes on the runway? Yes, that too. Hey, how about this thing with the funny red monster that repeats everything you say? Please leave me. Please just leave me here to die. (C Brooker)

The above clip from Futurama and the article by Charlie Brooker in today’s Guardian, add a dimension to the e-waste/toxic mineral/assembly line debate which I think points to a smarter future for the consumer electronics industry. If you add together conflict minerals, e-waste, toxic chemicals used in production, and the now well-documented unrest among Chinese assembly line workers, the satisfaction footprint of our gadgets is miniscule.

Conflict minerals break cover

There has been plenty of noise recently about conflict minerals,not least coming out of the financial regulation bill recently put through the US congress. Brought to light by the Enough Project, whose recent spoof of an Apple commercial highlighted the use of conflict minerals in our much cherished gadgets, the bill’s provision was a welcome recognition of the issue.

Steve Job’s even put himself out there, as has now become customary, exchanging emails with a concerned customer about the issue. Here is what was said (via wired):

Hi Steve,

I’d planned to buy a new iPhone tomorrow – my first upgrade since buying the very first version on the first day of its release – but I’m hesitant without knowing Apple’s position on sourcing the minerals in its products.

Are you currently making any effort to source conflict-free minerals? In particular, I’m concerned that Apple is getting tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold from Eastern Congo through its suppliers.

Looking forward to your response,
Derick

Jobs’ reply:

Yes. We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.

Sent from my iPhone

A bit of honesty (good) but detail-lite (customary/fail). Other manufacturers (sadly not CEOs) have also got their acts together in terms of having a response to the question as can be seen here.

Drowning under Ataris

Added to conflict minerals is e-waste. A recent UN report stated that e-waste is growing by 40m tonnes a year. Phones generally end up being recycled in the developing world and ‘remined’ for their precious minerals in horrid conditions.

Some manufacturers are doing better than others at eliminating BFRs, pthalatates and PVC plastics out of their products - if you add in conflict minerals and dodgy recycling practices and you can see the scale of the headache.

Pre-crisis relic

These are huge international issues, involving diffuse supply chains, unstable governments, antiquated legislation and a seemingly insatiable desire for gizmos . The industry is a classic pre-crisis relic. It is wholly unsustainable, in overreach and heading for a fall. There are 2 strands to a solution.

One path is a coordinated international response where stakeholders can sort out some commitments and organisations such as Gesi can get the industry to pool its resources, and try and coordinate an serious international shift in policies etc.

While we wait for that to paper over the cracks, a big chance lies in trying to get everyone to take a break from the satisfaction-negative hype machine.

Post-sweat shop scandal era

We have moved into a post-sweat shop scandal era. Corporate reputation damage alone is not enough of a disincentive. These days, a Sunday supplement feature can be drowned out by millions of media channels churning press release friendly stories. Futurama and Charlie Brooker are onto something far more powerful which can work in tandem with an achingly slow legislative approach. I’ve spoken about measuring happiness before and how at a national level it doesn’t quite stack up.

I do think, however, that a product happiness footprint for the consumer electronics industry is workable. If you took all the people involved in the lifecycle of a product and gave it a (human) satisfaction rating, you may end up with consumers moving away from making purchases burdened with misery as they wont want to add to their own increasing dissatisfaction with a range of (unsustainable) facts of modern life. This might help to slow down the wholly unsustainable consumer electronic product cycle and help the industry realign towards a smarter future that involves:

less, better products
more focus on ugradability/upcycling / modularity (e.g. replaceable battery please!)
stronger commitments to each step of the lifecycle
more honesty and input into social utility of products (realignment of advertising, support for more Ushahidi-type initiatives)
less dependence on Asian export-led economic growth model which is about to pop.

Anyone think this is workable? Or, are we destined to to be submerged by Ataris and Gameboys? I’d be really keen to hear anyone’s thoughts on this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl2j83LCHss&feature=player_embedded]

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