36C3 - Fairtronics

36c3 preroll music

Herald-Engel: ...three persons here to
announce, there is Andreas and if I'm

right, Sebastian, and if I'm right,
because I have the code names, of course,

Tamara. In their presentation, they have
their real names. Something like that.

Okay, their presentation is actually about
a tool and we all know that we use

electronic gadgets everywhere and but we
are not aware about what actually the

human cost is of all these things. And
they are developing a tool that shows us

this information. And it could probably
and hopefully help us a lot in defining

what things we're going to use in our
daily life. I want you to give them a

welcome applause. Please, go ahead.

Applause

Sebastian: Good morning. Thanks for
getting up early and coming here. I'm

really grateful for that. I'm Sebastian,
this is Tamara, this is Andreas. And we

are building a tool, a software tool for
easy supply chain risk analysis. And I

will start by talking about the background
of all this, what kind of risks we analyze

and why. Andreas will talk more about how
we do the analysis and then Tamara will

talk about our Project Fairtronics. So the
first thing I want to do is unpack this

slogan a little bit. Supply chain is
basically all the steps that happen to a

product before it is a product, right. It
starts with resource extraction and then

somehow components are being made or
assembled. And at the end you have maybe a

mobile phone or an arduino or something
like that. And when you're doing supply

chain, when you work with supply chains,
basically, you have to acknowledge that

electronics production happens all around
the globe. So that's a major thing that

makes it complicated. Risk in the sense of
social risk. So what we want to do is

minimize harm that is caused to people
involved in the production of electronics

devices. Analysis in the sense that we
compute it. So we have a computational

model of what kind of harms, risks are in
the supply chain of a product. And the

whole thing is supposed to be easy and
easy is meant in the sense that you do not

need to collect extra data. If you are
designing an electronic product the tool

should work only with the data you already
have. As I said, supply chains are global,

making electronics products is a global
affair. Basically, anything, any any

product you can think of would probably
involve 45 continents such as this

smartphone here, which is a pretty typical
case. It basically starts with resource

extraction at the blue green dots and
resources or like, yeah, raw materials are

located all around the globe. So they come
from South America, North America, Africa,

Asia and so on. And then processing and
manufacturing happens in a lot of other

places. So basically the material for any
product is shipped around the globe like,

like crazy. And the background of our work
is essentially sustainability. You may

have heard of this model of sustainability
that just made up of three pillars, the

social pillar, the environmental pillar
and the economic pillar. And, you know,

many people associate sustainability
mainly with the environmental aspect,

making things ecological, not emitting too
much CO2 and so on. And that sometimes

leads to the social aspect of
sustainability being a little bit

underrepresented. Social sustainability
means avoiding harm, you know, improving

people's well-being and so on. And that is
exactly the aspect that is most important

to our work. So what about the social
sustainability of electronic supply

chains? Basically, you know, across all
the stages of a supply chain, you can find

a whole huge catalog of human rights
violations and other problems that are

associated with the making of electronics
products from having to work in dangerous

conditions, for instance, being poisoned
by toxic chemicals or being harmed in, you

know, when the safety precautions are not
not sufficient. Being forced to work, for

instance, because people are in so much
debt that they need to repay. Children

having to work, people not being able to
form unions. Having to work too many hours

or not making a living wage, even though
people work, you know, 10 or 12 hours or

more a day. Being displaced from one's
home. For instance, when mines are being

established or extended and it frequently
happens that people that have been living

there are forced to move. From being
discriminated against or not enjoying

Social Security, such as, you know, being
able to take time off when you are sick.

For instance, in gold mining, many of
these cases are well documented, child

labor happens in very, very many places.
And also you may be aware that mercury is

frequently used to extract gold, when gold
is being mined. And of course, mercury is

toxic and sometimes, you know, safety
precautions are not taken and people get

poisoned and the environment gets
poisoned. So these are just two simple

examples to make it a bit more plastic.
And the big picture is that the

digitalisation, which we enjoy and
celebrate here at Congress happens on the

backs of the people who make these
electronics. So how can we fix that? I

want to go through three example steps,
you know, three puzzle pieces of the

solution. The first one is that there do
exist some certifications that rule out

certain human rights violations. For
instance, you know, the fair trade lable

from bananas or coffee or whatever. And
there exists a fair trade certification

for gold. There also exists another
certification, fair mind also for gold.

And, yeah, these do rule out a good part
of these human rights violations. There is

another standard, Irma, which is in the
process of being established, which

applies to more metals or more materials
that come from mining. But the problem

with all these certifications is that they
are not broadly available. So in each case

there only exist a few mines that have a
certification and most of the mines don't.

So another way to put this is that there
does not seem to be a huge demand for

certified metals at the moment. And I
think that is like one of the things that

need to change. A second example is that
when you are the designer of an electronic

product, of course you get to decide what
goes into that product and you make a lot

of design decisions. And of course, these
decisions determine what kind of raw

materials are needed to build your
product. So this is a fun little example.

This is a DIY mobile phone. So this phone
was built in a fab lab. And at the back of

the phone, you see these two little knobs
sticking out. And these little knobs are

capacitors. They are aluminium capacitors
because the person who built this phone

did not want to use tantalum capacitors
because tantalum is well known to be

associated with the whole catalog of human
rights problems. So, yeah, here you can

very clearly see this design tradeoff
between making the phone a little bit

thinner or avoiding the use of certain
resources. Many metals can be recycled,

not all metals do get recycled because
it's not always cost effective. But of

course, when it's being done and when it's
possible, recycling is a good way to

reduce the overall amount of resources
that are being extracted. Why is it not

always cost effective? I think this is,
again, partly a matter of supply and

demand. You know, when there is a larger
demand for recycled metals, I hope you

come cost effective to recycle a larger
amount of them. So the general message is

there do exist alternatives, but then the
question is why, you know, why do I keep

telling you there's no demand? Why is
there no demand? Why do not all people,

you know, try to source their materials
responsibly? And part of the answer is

that electronic supply chains are very
complex and very deep.

This is a supply chain taken from the
Naga I.T. project, a very nice product,

which is also a pioneering project in
fair electronics. And they tried to build

the most sustainable computer mouse
possible. So they took the mouse because

it's a very simple product. And they tried
to map out their entire supply chain

as far as possible. And you can see that
even for the simple product, basically,

the supply chain chart is overwhelming.
And you as a designer or as a maker of

an electronic product, you are basically
at the top of the supply chain and you

kind of have to look backwards and see
what your suppliers are and what are

their suppliers and so on. And with with
this huge amount of steps, it's very

difficult to know where to start. And
this is where our tool comes in.

And Andi will now tell you a bit more
about how that works.

Andreas: Okay, thank you. So, we have
learned now that, there exist severe

issues in the production of electronics
devices, severe social issues. We want to

do something about this. But we have also
seen right now that it is not an easy

task, that it is complex, that supply
chains for electronics products are

complex and deep. And so the question is
where can we start? And one thing that we

or that someone as a designer of
electronics products does know is the

components that go into an electronics
products, for example, here, the computer

mouse. You can see it's made from the
casing. There's the cable. There's the

circuit board. There are resistors that go
into it and so this is one thing that we

know. And so the idea for our tool is that
you can feed this component list, maybe

half a bill of materials available, maybe
you can just disassemble a device, feed it

into our fairtronics tool and get a
hotspot analysis that tells you where is

the highest risk, where are the hotspots
for social issues in your device?

So how could this be done? And I will walk
with you through some steps to make

this more tangible. Like I said, one
component in our computer mouse is the

resistor. And if we take the resistor, we
can start collecting generic data, what

the resistor is made of. There is some
copper part of the resistor, there is some

iron part of the resistor. And one example
for a data source that you can see here is

from an environmental assessment of
generic or average electronics components.

And what you can see here listed is the
materials that an average resistor

consists of in weight. For example, copper
it is made of 61.71 % of copper or 12.49 %

of iron in weight, an average resistor
that we see here. OK. So now we know

something about the composition of one
component and when we follow that trail

and say, okay a large part of our of our
component is copper, we can ask where does

the copper come from? And here's another
example of a data source that tells us

something about this. It's from the US
Geological Survey and they publish yearly

estimates about the global production of
different minerals. And you can see that

in 2018, Chile produced a 5.8 million tons
of copper, or Congo produced 1.2 million

tons of copper in 2018. These are
estimates based on publications from

different firms or governments about their
copper production. Okay. So we can assume

a certain amount of the copper that flows
into our component, into the resistor,

comes from Congo. And now we can ask, how
are the working conditions in Congo? Are

people getting fair salary there? How long
do they have to work? Is there child labor

possibly involved? Is there forced labor
possibly involved in Congo? And there you

can all find quite some data on this
country level that tells you something

about working conditions in different
countries. And also our observation is

that the situation is improving here. But
the data quality that you get since

especially since the U.N. sustainability
goals were established, you can find more

and more better quality data about social
conditions, working conditions in

different countries. And here's one
example from the International Labor

Organization. They also publish a report
on estimates about, in this case, the work

and poverty rate. So the share of people
that do work, that still live below the

poverty line. And in this case we are
interested in Congo and see, okay, this

rate is 70%, 70% of the people in
employment still don't have enough to

live. And a huge part of our work is to
collect this data, to collect data about

raw material composition of electronics
components, to collect data about

production rates of these raw materials in
different countries, and to collect data

about the indicators that tell us
something about the working conditions in

these countries, bring them in a common
format and collect them in our database.

And as soon as we have this data, we can
start asking some questions and do some

basic computations. For example, we might
be interested in the significance of

copper produced in Congo. Well, when we
say, okay, Congo's share in world

production of copper is 5.81% and the
share of copper in our resistor weight is

61.71%, we arrive at 3.58% and we could
interpret this as something like medium

activity. So anything we can say, okay,
around 3.58% of copper in our resistor we

can assume stems from Congo and well, it's
between 1 and 10%, so quite significant,

it is medium activity, quite important for
our resistor. Anything that is more than

10% would be high activity. Anything below
1% would be low activity just to

qualify this a bit. And then how severe
are the impacts in Congo if we take our

example of fair salary? We have that
example of working poverty rate of 70%,

which is among the top 25% of rates for
all the countries that we have for this

indicator. And this is just one
qualification that you can make at this

point and say, okay, anything that is, any
rate that is among these top 25% of rates

is high impact. And if we do this for our
whole product, for the computer mouse, we

can actually see that copper is not only
the most prevalent metal in the resistor,

but for the whole computer mouse, mainly
due to the cable. So well, copper is quite

prevalent in our computer mouse and we
also identified a social hotspot from the

data that we just had, that is the copper
extraction in Congo and the impact

category that we looked at is fair salary.
And one interpretation from this analysis

would be, okay, if we find a source of
fair copper, of certified copper for the

cable or find some producer of cables that
is willing to work with us in improving

the situation, that would be a big step
forward for the fairness of the computer

mouse. Now, there are some limitations
from this approach that I would like to

point you to. For one, it's an assessment
on a very generic level. So you should

take this with a grain of salt. It's just
to highlight hotspots, to highlight those

areas where it's worth looking deeper and
try to identify the real issues that lie

behind this. In the whole approach, we
follow a methodology called Social

Lifecycle Assessment, which is similar to
environmental assessments of products. So

you look at the whole supply chain or the
whole lifecycle of a product and in an

environmental assessment, you are
interested in the CO2 emissions or in the

water use that happens during the whole
lifecycle. And in our case, we have just

different impact categories. So the impact
category is not water use or CO2

emissions, but direct social impacts and
that these are the ones that we are

focusing on. So anything related to
workers, freedom of association, working

hours, forced labor, health and safety,
Social Security, equal opportunities,

child labor and fair salary. And also, as
you can see from the example, we are

focusing right now just on the raw
material extraction phase and the future.

This should be extended also to cover
other lifecycle phases to get to a full

assessment, social assessment. Okay, now I
will pass on to Tamara, who will tell you

more about our project and the tool that
we are developing.

Tamara: So thank you. Now that Sebastian
already told you why we are working on

this project and Andi you told you how we
are doing this, I like to show you a bit

of what we've done already. So we're
building a web based analysis tool to

identify social hotspots. You can see a
screenshot of the current work in progress

of it. It should be, an MVP should be done
by the end of February. And to revisit

that example for the computer mouse, here
you can see that the component that you

should look at first is the data cable,
and then that if you find a sustainably

sourced or fair copper for your product,
that would be a significant improvement.

And now you maybe all wonder if that is
really great and how can I contribute to

it? So first of all, to all the makers of
electronic products. It would be great if

you let us know what kind of tools you
currently use, in what formats you export.

You could just send us your bill of
material list or PCB layout so we can

offer templates because we want it to be
really easy to use. And the other thing is

just use our tool by the end of February.
Give us feedback. Tell us what

functionalities are working for you,
whether or not. And another thing is we're

an open source project, we'd love to
collaborate. So if you have time on your

hands and you're motivated and or
passionate for the subject, just join us.

And you can find us on gitlab, here's the
link. A very crucial matter is the

procurement of data. Without data we
cannot conduct an analysis and our current

database is rather tiny and a lot of
manual labor went into it. And even though

there have been significant improvements
concerning open source data for social

indicators it's still not in a
standardised format to feed them into a

coherent system quickly. And another thing
is the raw materials that constitute

components, there it's even harder to find
something. So if you're in possession of

data, if you're probably a manufacturer
and you have lists or if you just love to

extract data in an automated way, yeah,
let us know. And the last thing is talk

about it. So even if you're not a maker
yourself. Yeah, like spread the word, talk

with people about it. And the more people
know and think about it, hopefully, the

more can be done and if it's at a bare
minimum more conscience towards this

topic. And to wrap up this talk, I'd like
to reiterate what Sebastian said in the

beginning. Currently in the production of
electronic products, human rights are

violated at almost every step of the
supply chain and this must not be the

case. And this does not have to be the
case, as he said earlier. There are

alternatives. You can use certified raw
materials, you can use, materials from

certified mines. You can actively take
working conditions into consideration in

the design process and you can use
recycled material if possible. But most

importantly, you can increase the demand
for sustainably sourced raw materials and

a fair production of electronic products.
And here's also our contact information.

So feel free to write us an email or
you're here, we're here, you can come and

talk to us. And I'd also like to thank the
prototype fund at this point because they

have been funding us so far. And that was
a great help. Yes. Thank you. And thank

you for your attention, your interest and
your time.

Applause

Herald-Engel: Super! Thank you! Wow! You
can be really proud about your product,

really. I wonder if there are questions
here among our audience who is really

clearly woken up and fresh. And to the
point, ah here at number two. Yes, please!

Mic2: Is it on? Okay. Collecting data is a
difficult task, as you just said. So I

wanted to ask if you share it with other
databases like Wikidata or another open

data source, or if you like only keep it
to yourself because it's too hard to

actually connect to other data sources?
Andreas: Well, technically, we're working

on,... to have a REST interface for the
data that we collect and we happily

share it. For some we are not sure if we
are allowed to share them. So if there is

some expert here concerned property rights
of databases, that would be great to talk

about them. But we happily share the data
that we can. And if you want to connect

here, great!
Mic2: Okay. Thank you.

Herald-Engel: Here, Number one.
Mic1: Thanks a lot for the presentation

and I'll probably send you some bill of
materials, too. I've got one question. I

know that Fairlötet offers the Stannol
soldering tin. But do you also plan to

offer a solder paste? Because for all SMD
assembly obviously it's not possible to

use that Fairlötet product.
Sebastian: Yeah, okay, so for context,

basically that was our inaugural project
at Fairlötet. We are an association that

works on fair electronics. And yeah,
basically the first project we did was we

got together with Stannol, which is a
maker of soda products, and designed a

soda wire. So what you would use when you
have your soda...iron and...So I would

suggest that you get in contact with
Stannol directly. Actually, we are not so

much involved in distributing this order
anymore.

Herald-Engel: Number one, can you repeat
the question, please?

Mic1: So there is no product on the market
at the moment what you can recommend for

soldering paste?
Sebastian: Stannol do have their own

product line they call Fairtin. So that is
tin with a traceable origin, following

best practices in mining. So that might be
an option for you.

Herald-Engel. Okay, we have a question at
number two.

Mic2: Thank you, you hear me? Thank you
very much for your talk. I was wondering,

have you gotten in contact with purchasing
organizations, because in supply chains

nowadays you often have a service provider
that is in between the producer who buys

these products and the vendors. And often
these purchasing service providers are

asked to help control the supply chain.
Sebastian: We haven't actually and to be

honest, I think we need to start at the
point where there's some kind of momentum

and for us I think it's easier to reach
people like you. You know, maybe hardware

developers or maybe small enterprises or
maybe just activists because, I mean, I

cannot really make really broad
statements, but I think big parts of the

whole industry are kind of conservative
when it comes to stuff like

sustainability. And we kind of have to
work our way through there, I think.

Herald-Engel: Okay, we have a question.
Number three there. One second. Yes,

please. Number three.
Mic3: First of all, thank you for your

talk, and my question is, you used a
relative approach regarding the evaluation

of the impact category. And I was
wondering if there was a specific reason

for that or if, I mean, you could have
instead just evaluated the absolute value

by which you compare the different
countries of origin.

Andreas: You mean to have some kind of
reference point and say, okay, it's better

or worse and than this reference point.
The approach that I showed you right now

is our starting point where we are
following some well, an approach that or

modeling after approach that we found in
literature. And that seems doable for us

right now within the six month timeframe
that we have to arrive at a full

prototype. But it's not fixed. So
certainly the whole methodology can still

be improved. So, yeah, that's pretty much
what I can say to that.

Mic3: Thank you.
Herald-Engel: Fine. Thank you. Yes, sir,

please.
Mic: Hello. My question also concerns the

relative impact approach that analyzes,
for example with the mouse which

countries and which materials from these
countries had an impact. And I was also

wondering if except for the country of
origin and its world market share and also

the share of weight in the product, as you
showed with copper, if you're also taking

into consideration other factors, for
example, the rarity and different impacts

of materials, for example, copper being
more common than tantalum, as you

mentioned, and if you would consider
adding that as an additional factor into

your analysis.
Andreas: Right now, we do not consider it.

But one could certainly think about it.
Maybe we can talk about later about this

idea, would be great.
Herald-Engel: It's fine. Do we have

questions online? No one. We're all
asleep. I see someone here at number two.

Please Sir.
Mic2: Hi there. I'm also a prototype fund

recipient. It's really, really cool to see
them doing all this nice and this awesome

stuff. I am a happy fair phone owner. And
I also have another non fair phone and the

fairphone was twice the price of the other
one. And whenever I ask people or they ask

me, which one should I get? I say like,
well do you wanna spend twice, that's

where you have to get yourself into. In
the fact that, in the face that we have

this failure market wise, do you see any
role for regulation to actually make it

easier for people who build things like
this to do the right thing? Because when

you speak to small businesses, the thing
that I always have pushed back at me is

that we cannot make them viable at these
prices. So we're forced to use over the

non fair parts in our electronics.
Sebastian: So concerning regulations,

yesterday I gave a lightning talk on the
Lieferkettengesetz, right now there's a

broad NGO campaign going on that is trying
to establish mandatory human rights due

diligence in Germany. But also there are
initiatives in other countries such as

Switzerland. France already has a supply
chain law and so on. And there are also

some processes on the EU and U.N. levels.
So, I think that is,... I mean, but that

is basically the bare minimum, right? I
mean, not violating human rights should

actually not be something great. It should
be, you know, it should be something

everyone does. Yeah.
Herald-Engel: That's absolutely the point

actually, in our lifestyle, western world
hooked up to electronics and yeah, we

can't live without it. But I had a
question as well, if you...Ah there is

another one. I have a question. But number
three, please, you can.

Mic: I have a question about the lack of
data. You said you need more data and you

asked for data sheets of parts. But I
think you also need more data about metals

or working conditions. Do you have the top
three data what you would appreciate based

on the metals or on the working conditions
in countries, for example? Probably we can

provide you with that.
Andreas: Oh, it would be hard to tell

something about the top three. It's just,
well, right now we are at a state where we

think, okay, on a very generic level, we
can cover most of the minerals that are

relevant. We can cover most of the
countries. But most of the indicators, for

the indicators, there is still a lot of
gaps. Well, maybe you can find an

indicator for child labor but it covers
only 20 countries and not all of the

countries. So on this level, on a very
generic level, we are quite complete. But

then a good next step, for example, would
be to get data that is more specific to

industries and not only on a country
level. So that would be great. In general,

it's just well, we need more of
everything.

Tamara: And also components and what raw
materials they constitute.

Andreas: So yeah, as Tamara just said, the
component composition is the more severe

lack that we have right now.
Tamara: So the more generic it is, the

less accurate it is.
Herald-Engel: May I? I have a question as

well. We still have a few minutes left.
Did you mention how you're financed or

backed or... did you do that?
Tamara: I think I did. I'm not sure of

it but there's also the logo.
Herald-Engel: And this brings you til

which stage, meaning til the product is
there or is there something in the future

waiting?
Tamara: Til the end of February this

round, round it is called, is finished. So
we want to have a minimal viable product

type at that point. But I think all of us
would be happy to see more of that in the

future.
Sebastian: Right, so basically the period

where we're being funded by prototype fund
is almost over, it's until February. But

Fairlötet will try to keep the project
going as best as possible. So we're also

trying to build a small developer
community around it. And let's see what

happens then.
Herald-Engel: Yeah. And so spread the

words, I would say, so that you have more
data as well in your database before the

end of February. So I would ask everyone
to give a warm applause and remember, give

them the data and they can bring it
further. Thank you. Thank you guys for the

talk. Fantastic. Fairtronics.org, check it
out!

Applause

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