Ethical Mobile Phones
If you are a lover of mobile phones but want to find one that suits your ethics, check out Gooshing. They compare various mobile phone manufacturers and offer the ethical lowdown on each one. Of course, they endeavour to encourage consumers not to upgrade their mobiles every time the wind changes direction, because inappropriately disposed of phones are detrimental to the environment. You can sort all the phones by ethical rating or the best price so you don’t have to shed out a fortune for your buzzing bundle of joy.
Gooshing reports on ten areas of corporate behaviour and companies are ranked according to their participation in these areas.
Brands are marked down for testing on animals, having involvement: in armaments, boycott calls (when campaign groups call for a boycott of companies or brands that have behaved irresponsibly), genetic modification and the nuclear power industry. They are also marked down for furnishing political parties with political donations. Companies are rewarded for having E.C.O. Accreditation and ecological schemes, such as energy efficiency, organic certification and fair trade.
One of the top eco-phones according to Gooshing is the Samsung E400, which apparently has a positive record for all of the above, apart from armaments, thus it has been bestowed with 3.5 out of a possible 5 stars. At the bottom is the Motorola RAZR V3, possessing a negative record in terms of armaments, ecological schemes and political donations.
I have two old school mobiles and my tariff has been a £10 a month Genie (yes you heard me right) price plan for about five years, so clearly I don’t believe in throwing them away and upgrading. However they are both Siemens phones and Siemens give political donations and have involvement in the nuclear power and armaments industry. Perhaps I should change my phones!
