These barriers to repair are no accident. Market power and intellectual property rights have enabled manufacturers to unilaterally determine when, where (and at what cost) and by whom their products can be fixed. This is why many were surprised last month when technology giant Apple announced that it will be launching its Self Service Repair program, offering customers the ability to access the company’s proprietary parts and tools. 

Long regarded as the primary villain against the “right to repair” for its aggressive lobbying, Apple’s announcement signals a sea change is coming. Though the details of the program are yet to be released, Apple now joins the likes of Microsoft, Samsung and other technology companies in making an industry-led commitment to better allow us to fix our own stuff.

But what to make of these commitments? Are they right-to-repair wins, or are there reasons for skepticism? There is undoubtedly good news contained within these commitments, but campaigners are wise to look beyond mere “permission to repair” and keep pressing for the right.

Apple’s announcement arrives as a burgeoning global movement of right-to-repair advocates has been fighting for legal and policy changes to enable us to take repair into our own hands. Increased repairability enables secondary markets for repair and servicing, extends product lifespan to reduce environmental impacts, and distributes technical knowledge throughout society. These benefits are increasingly relevant in the context of today’s growing wealth inequality, the importance of developing a knowledge economy, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s declaration of an environmental “code red for humanity.”

Promising grassroots efforts toward policy reform have also begun to materialize around the world. Hard-fought right-to-repair wins include an executive order signed by U.S. President Joe Biden this summer, a string of U.S. state-level repair bills, EU regulatory measures mandating access to repair information and parts, and Canadian provincial and federal bills targeting warranties and protections for digital locks under copyright law. Most recently, the Australian Productivity Commission has released a report wholly endorsing increased repairability and a suite of legislative and regulatory changes to enable it. 

If technology companies wish to embrace repair, they should not stand in the way of the legal and policy changes sought by right-to-repair campaigners.

While the winds are blowing increasingly in the direction of repair, Apple’s Self Service Repair program might not be as altruistic as it seems. Taken at their worst, these commitments may be little more than “repair-washing” – an attempt to shape the narrative around repair and technology manufacturers that is increasingly becoming a public relations liability for these companies. It remains to be seen whether the commitments will meaningfully address the economic, environmental and social costs of un-repairability.

Back in 2019, Nathan Proctor, the head of U.S. Public Interest Research Groups’ Right to Repair campaign, warned that the repair movement was being hijacked by the very companies that sought to preclude it. Citing efforts to increase the number of Samsung-authorized repairers at the time, Proctor wrote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you … But then, as a last ditch effort, they co-opt you.” Right-to-repair campaigners would be wise to keep Proctor’s words front of mind these days.

It would be disingenuous to not grant these commitments some applause, though. Co-opting or not, there is reason for optimism. Industry norms can be as powerful as law and policy, and the market power wielded by Apple alone shows the potential for shaping those norms toward increased consumer choice and market competition in repair. No matter how you slice it, these commitments count as progress. 

But the “permission to repair” will never amount to a right. Right-to-repair goals cannot be meaningfully achieved through self-regulation alone. These commitments are effectively a type of charity. They amount to a promise by manufacturers not to rigidly enforce their intellectual property and contractual rights. That is extraordinarily helpful and important but not the whole story. As right-to-repair advocate Cory Doctorow wrote in a recent article for OneZero, campaigners would be right to “keep their eye on the prize.”

If technology companies wish to embrace repair, they should not stand in the way of the legal and policy changes sought by right-to-repair campaigners. To cultivate a meaningful and participatory repair culture, we need to create public-interest exceptions to the exclusive intellectual property rights and market power exercised by these firms. These allow them to keep their tight grip on repair, and far beyond mere permission, this is what would give us the “right” to repair.

At its core, the right-to-repair movement is rooted in an ethos that holds a deep belief in human potential. Repair is not merely about mending broken things or making them whole. It also enables inquiry, discovery, devising new solutions and the dissemination of collective knowledge. Having the largest technology manufacturers in support of repair is a good thing, but the keys to repair should be held by all of us.

Anthony Rosborough is a lawyer, doctoral researcher in intellectual property law at the European University Institute, and founder of the Canadian Repair Coalition.

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Apple has been leading the charge on American tech companies pursuing the ambitious goal of sourcing 100% of their energy from renewable sources. It hit this target in 2018 at its global facilities and is working towards 100% renewable energy sourcing throughout its entire supply chain by 2020. Apple is now the leading purchaser of solar energy in the U.S, and according to its annual Green Bond Report, the company issued two green bonds in 2016/2017 that raised a total of $2.5 billion to pay for that renewable energy.

In addition to major investments in renewable energy, Apple has made some progress on electronic waste, but more work definitely remains. E-waste is a massive problem in the technology sector. Electronics often end up being recycled by rural communities in Asia and it can have devastating social and environmental impacts. To deal with this problem, Apple developed a recycling robot named Daisy that’s capable of dissembling 1.2 million phones a year. Though to put that in perspective, the company sold over 217 million new phones last year.

Unfortunately, Daisy’s work is meant to keep all Apple product repairs in-house. Apple has actually been a vocal opponent to the Right to Repair movement (in sharp contrast to its support of climate action). It has successfully lobbied to stop California’s Right to Repair legislation by claiming that customers would harm themselves if they fixed their own iPhones and it went so far as to sue independent iPhone repair shops for using aftermarket iPhone parts.

Embarrassingly, both Apple and Samsung were fined €10m and €5m respectively in Italy in 2018 for deliberately slowing down phones with operating system updates that caused “serious malfunctions and significantly reduced performance, thus accelerating phones’ substitution,” according to Italy’s competition authority. It’s a big deal since keeping old phones around longer significantly reduces your phone’s environmental footprint.

Labour issues are another major concern. Investors have long known about worker rights violations in Apple’s supply chain, many of which stem from Taiwanese electronics company Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (ticker: HNHPF), better known as Foxconn. In 2010, 18 Foxconn employees attempted suicide by jumping off the roof of a facility. The suicide attempts were blamed, in part, on horrendous working conditions in the factory that assembles iPhones and other consumer electronics. The situation hasn’t improved: Apple’s 2019 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report detailed 27 core labor and human rights violations. These included 24 working hours falsification violations, two debt-bonded labour violations, and one underage labour violation.

How about Samsung? Samsung Electronics is a major South Korean electronics manufacturer that doesn’t just make smartphones, it also makes semiconductors, TVs, home appliances and more. Samsung hasn’t had as many flashy green announcements as Apple over the last few years, but that’s because Samsung was doing corporate sustainability before it was cool. According to its 2019 Sustainability Report, Samsung established its first e-waste take-back and recycling centre in 1998 and started building sustainability into its design process in 2004. The company reduced its CO2 emission intensity by 59% from 2008 to 2013 and plans to source renewable energy for 100% of the energy used by its factories, office buildings and operational facilities by next year.

Note: the use of renewable energy by both companies doesn’t boost their clean revenue scores (see scorecard below), since Corporate Knights considers it the equivalent of a mining company offsetting its pollution with renewable energy generated onsite. While commendable, both Apple and Samsung would need to up their recycled content to avoid the impacts of mining their components.

Like Apple, Samsung discourages repairing its products by making them hard to repair. According to the iFixit’s Smartphone Repairability Score, most EPEAT Gold iPhones have an average score of six or seven out of ten, while Samsung EPEAT Gold mobile phones average a three or four out of ten.

As well, Samsung did poorly on Greenpeace’s last electronics guide from 2017. Case in point: it scored a D- on hazardous chemical elimination while Apple earned a B.

Samsung also flounders when it comes to doing right by its employees. Samsung’s CEO makes 478 times more money than average worker, and an investigation by the Associated Press in 2016 found more than 200 cases of Samsung factory employees contracting illnesses like leukaemia, lupus, lymphoma, and multiple sclerosis. When families sought more information about how these employees got sick, Samsung asked the South Korean government to not disclose types and volumes of substances for fear of revealing trade secrets. Last year, Samsung finally apologized and committed to compensate former and current employees suffering from work-related illnesses.

From a financial perspective, it’s a bit of a toss-up. Both companies have performed well over the past five years with more potential growth as new innovations emerge that keep consumers lining up for product launches.

Sustainability-wise, while Samsung may have been ahead of the curve ten years ago, it’s starting to fall behind on a few fronts. Meanwhile, Apple still has more to do, but it’s been more aggressive about some of its environmental goals.  I would consider the companies tied for now but it won’t be long before Apple takes the lead if it continues on the current trajectory.

Either way, tech news and review site Engadget was right when it declared that “you can’t buy an ethical smartphone today” in North America. I think I’ll just get my phone’s screen repaired and wait until the Fairphone finally comes over from Europe.

The following scorecard is based on 2017 data.

Beta is a measure of a stock’s volatility in relation to the market. By definition, the market has a beta of 1.0, and individual stocks are ranked according to how much they deviate from the market. A stock that swings more than the market over time has a beta above 1.0. Lower beta means less risk.

Have a company in your portfolio that you want to replace with a more sustainable option? Write us an email or send us a tweet!

Tim Nash blogs as The Sustainable Economist and is the founder of Good Investing.

The post Which smartphone is more ethical, Apple or Samsung? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

MacLaren’s cloud-based digital asset management company, MediaValet, had grown and spread around the world. With customers in Europe, he knew he had to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) – the new global gold standard when it comes to privacy – or face the prospect of hefty fines.

It was a challenging process that took six months. But MacLaren says being among the first North American companies to become GDPR compliant has made a big difference. “It has attracted new customers, increased customer retention and overall grown our business. It has increased market share because it helped us win deals from other existing digital asset management providers.”

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and with the GDPR’s entry into force in May, privacy issues and ethical questions about what companies do with the data they collect have been in the spotlight.

In October, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a call to action. He warned that privacy was a human right and the collection of huge amounts of personal information on individuals was hurting society.
“Our own information, from the everyday to the deeply personal, is being weaponized against us with military efficiency,” Cook told an international gathering of privacy commissioners.

Cook praised the GDPR and called on the United States to follow Europe’s lead.
While California has adopted a consumer privacy act that is scheduled to go into effect in 2020, privacy laws in the U.S. are often weak or nonexistent.

Canada has the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which governs private businesses, and the Privacy Act, which spells out the rules for federal government departments, but neither has kept pace with changes in technology. With the GDPR now in effect, some experts are concerned Canada’s privacy laws will soon no longer be considered equivalent to those in the EU, which could complicate life for Canadian companies doing business with European companies or customers.

Described as the world’s strongest data protection rules, the GDPR sets out how the private information of European residents must be handled. It backs up those rules with the threat of stiff fines – up to €20 million or four per cent of a company’s worldwide annual revenue for the previous year, whichever is higher.

Fines can be imposed on any company around the world that breaks those rules – even if it has no offices in Europe.

European officials told Reuters in October that there has been a 53 per cent increase over the past year in privacy complaints under the GDPR in France and Italy alone. They expect data protection authorities to soon begin levying fines.

European data protection authorities can also use order-making powers to enforce the new privacy rules.

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“Our own information, from the everyday to the deeply personal, is being weaponized against us with military efficiency.”

-Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

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For example, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner, Canadian Elizabeth Denham, has issued an order directing a British Columbian company involved in the Cambridge Analytica scandal to destroy all the personal information it collected on British citizens once B.C.’s information commissioner’s office finishes its investigation into the scandal.

The GDPR’s new rules are wide ranging.
One of its key provisions – privacy by design – actually originated in Canada, the brainchild of former Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian. With privacy by design, privacy considerations are baked into systems from the start, not added as an afterthought.

Companies that have a data breach must notify affected customers within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach. Businesses must ask people, using clear language, for consent to use their information. Individuals can withdraw that consent, and request access to information a company has regarding them. They can take their data with them if they switch to another company.

Among the other provisions is the right to be forgotten, which allows an individual to ask for information about them to be erased.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien says the GDPR is inspiring privacy policy in other countries.

“Should we apply the GDPR exactly in Canada? Not necessarily. I don’t think so. We have a Canadian context. But there are many, many positive things in the GDPR.”

Scott Smith, senior director of intellectual property and innovation policy for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, says many large Canadian companies that operate internationally have already moved to comply with the GDPR.

However, he said many smaller companies don’t yet realize that they may need to comply as well.
“You run an Airbnb. You have a European traveller who happens to be here. You keep their name, their address, their e-mail address and phone number – that’s all personal information of an EU citizen. Theoretically, you need to be GDPR compliant.”

The GDPR comes at a time when data and personal information have never been more valuable.

“I’d say it is paramount,” says Smith. “Data is the way we are going to create new products, solve problems. Having timely, accurate and extensive data allows companies to understand their market, understand their customers, understand what their customers want and deliver it in ways that are more efficient and effective and convenient and lowers prices.”

Elisa Henry, a partner with Borden, Ladner, Gervais, says that for many companies, data has become their main asset.

“If you don’t properly take care of your data and you don’t handle it properly, then you’re putting your main assets at risk.”

Being GDPR compliant is rapidly becoming an asset when it comes to sales and business deals, Henry adds.

“If you cannot say that these days and your business is relying heavily on processing personal information, then you’re out of the game very quickly.”

Chantal Bernier, who leads the privacy and cybersecurity practice at the law firm Dentons, says companies could also have difficulties exchanging data with European businesses if they aren’t GDPR compliant.

“In the GDPR there is a mandatory requirement for any organization to only transfer data or to only hire a vendor that is GDPR compliant. So in addition to the competitive advantage with branding, there is a legal requirement that is a huge differentiator when you can put forward right away that you are GDPR compliant.”

The cost of complying can vary widely, says Bernier. A small website selling products to Europe might be able to comply with the law for $50,000. A larger company that uses artificial intelligence, algorithms, a large amount of personal information, has European employees and sells services to Europe could end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to do everything necessary.

Cavoukian, who now leads the Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence at Ryerson University, says a lot of businesses have been coming to her for privacy by design certification that they can then tout to their customers.

Many of the provisions of the GDPR highlight ethical questions for businesses – even those who don’t do business in Europe.

Among them, says Henry, is the use of artificial intelligence and entirely automated decision-making or profiling that affects individuals – something restricted under the GDPR.

“There are a lot of questions that as citizens we should be asking and ethics has to be embedded in privacy. They go hand in hand. And the GDPR suddenly played a big role in raising awareness about that.”

In Europe, the new, tougher rules are being well received, she added. “People are more and more conscious and worried about surveillance, about monitoring of their behaviour, about automated decision-making.”

Another ethical issue for business is the temptation, once you have a database chock full of personal information, to use it in a variety of ways.

Cavoukian says it is important to make privacy the default setting and not to use information you gather for any purpose other than the purpose for which it was collected.

“The beauty of doing that is that it builds trusted business relationships, which are lacking. There’s a huge trust deficit,” she says.

“So, I actually believe it gives businesses a competitive advantage and allows them to retain the customers they have, gain their loyalty and it attracts new opportunity.”
MacLaren agrees.

He says the most challenging part of becoming GDPR compliant was reviewing all of the company’s licensing agreements with their lawyer. That review and making sure all aspects of MediaValet’s operations complied with the GDPR cost “north of six figures.”

But MacLaren is glad he did it.

“In the end, if it’s good for our customers and their users, it’s good for us and our businesses.”

Elizabeth Thompson is an award-winning journalist who has covered Canada’s Parliament since 2001.

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