Technology Designed to Last: Fairphone and the Modular Design Bet

Most people change their smartphone every two or three years. Not because the device is broken — but because it was designed to feel obsolete. Non-replaceable battery. Spare parts unavailable. Software that slows down with each update. This is not a technological inevitability. It’s a business strategy.

And it has an invisible cost.

Lifespan: The Underestimated Climate Lever

Manufacturing a smartphone mobilises considerable resources: extraction of rare metals, assembly of complex components, transport to markets. The essential portion of an electronic device’s environmental impact is concentrated before the first use.

Germany’s Fraunhofer IZM, an independent research institute, measured this phenomenon on the Fairphone 4. The result is precise: using your phone for five years rather than three reduces its annual carbon footprint by 31%. Extending use to seven years — with two battery replacements — reduces it by 44%.

No material innovation can rival this figure. The most climate-friendly decision a user can make is not to buy the latest model stamped “green” — it’s to keep the one they already have for longer.

But only if the device allows it.

Fairphone: Proof That Design Can Choose Longevity

Founded in 2013 in the Netherlands, Fairphone is a company that made repairability its central argument — not as a marketing label, but as a design constraint. Each component is conceived to be accessible, replaced or updated without specialist tools.

“The best way to reduce the environmental impact of a phone is to ensure it can be used for as long as possible,” explains Thea Kleinmagd, researcher at Fraunhofer IZM. “Parts that can be easily replaced or repaired enable this — which helps to minimise the phone’s effects on people and the planet.”

This is not an ideological stance. It’s a different kind of engineering — and the Fraunhofer study confirms its real effects on carbon footprint.

The Fairphone model demonstrates that a mainstream smartphone can be designed to last. What was presented as an incompatibility between innovation and longevity turns out to be a business choice, not a physical constraint.

The Circular Economy: A Movement Changing Scale

Fairphone is not alone. At another scale, the principle of the circular economy — designing products to remain in use, be repaired, and re-enter material cycles — is gaining ground across very different sectors.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has brought together more than 1,000 organisations worldwide, including companies representing 20% of all plastic packaging produced globally, around a shared objective: building a circular economy for plastic, in which this material never becomes waste. More than 50 governments have signed this commitment.

This is not yet a total revolution — but it is proof that entire industries are beginning to integrate circularity as a design imperative, when sufficiently incentivised or constrained.

The same logic can apply to electronics. What Fairphone demonstrates at its scale, regulatory requirements on spare part availability, software update duration, or battery replaceability, can impose across the whole market.

What You Can Do Right Now

Repairability is both an individual decision AND a collective one. Here are the two levels:

At your scale:

• Keep your device longer. Every extra year of use amortises the manufacturing footprint. Seven years of use means 44% less annual footprint.
• Repair before replacing. Before changing a device that slows down or has a cracked screen, check whether a repair is possible. The cost is often much less than replacement.
• Choose repairability. When buying a new device, modular design and access to spare parts are concrete criteria — for your long-term use and your carbon footprint.

At the collective scale:

• Support the right to repair. Decisions about parts availability, software support duration, or bans on deliberate slowdowns happen in legislation. These are questions of industrial policy, not just individual consumption.

Technology is not condemned to planned obsolescence. It can be designed to be repaired, to last and to be passed on. Fairphone is the most tangible proof. The rest is a question of will — from companies, regulators, and users who choose to demand better.

Sources

• Fraunhofer IZM — Keeping phones for 5 years cuts yearly impact on global warming by around 31% — verified 2026-05-02
• Ellen MacArthur Foundation — Global Commitment 2024 — verified 2026-05-02

See also: Keeping your phone for 5 years instead of 3 cuts its annual carbon footprint by 31%