A couple of years ago, I read an article about Fairphone in an edition of “The Big Issue” and I was fascinated. The first thing that caught my notice was that when Fairphone’s founder, Bas van Abel, first wanted to create a fair mobile phone, one of the first things he needed to do was pay a bribe in Africa to access a mine. I’d heard that the mines in Africa can be run in terrible ways for the local people (who are basically desperate for any money they can get) and this was, and still is, a major concern for me. Just because it’s in Africa and out of my sight, doesn’t mean I can just put this out of my mind and…

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