Sheffielders join global call:  imagine an alternative to planned obsolescence

A guest blog by Karine Nohr

 

I still have my Dad’s watch, which saw him through from young manhood to his deathbed, and I only need to see it to feel nostalgic about my Dad. In that era, a watch was a very long term possession. With the occasional visit to the watch repairer, it was expected that an item such as this would see you through your whole life. 

With many of the goods that we buy today, this notion of very long term use has disappeared. We are encouraged to upgrade to the latest model, we are told it is better than the model we already have, and the concept of fixing it, whether it’s a toaster, a hairdryer or a mobile phone, is alien to our modern day lives.  Many items are now designed with the idea of inbuilt obsolescence, where manufacturers deliberately build appliances to break down after a certain period  encouraging consumers to buy new ones. What a waste of both limited planetary resources, some of which are being severely run down,  and a waste of carbon footprint for the extraction, construction, transportation and packaging of the new products. 

Two billion smartphone users upgrade to a new phone roughly every 11 months;their old smartphone goes into a drawer and is forgotten about, or gets thrown out. Barely 10% of these get recycled and their precious components recovered and reused. This is economic and environmental unsustainable madness.

Speaking to this very issue, a protest Action took place in the Apple shop in Meadowhall Sheffield last week. A group of local Sheffield people went into the shop and played a video on multiple shop devices, whilst handing out to staff an explanation of what they were doing, why they were doing it, and inviting the staff to join what has been called the ‘Apple Alliance’. Part of a global campaign, organised by a network of artists from five continents with backgrounds in tech, science, design, storytelling, and communication, this simultaneously took place in multiple cities all over the World.

This Action had been called because Apple, only 1 year after releasing their previous model, had just released yet another rendition of the iPhone. Coinciding with this, a video was launched,  seemingly of the CEO of Apple Tim Cook,  promoting another version of iPhone, “the last iPhone we will ever make, and the last iPhone that you will ever buy”—a repairable, upgradeable ‘iPhone Infinity’.

Press and fans were further shocked by the announcement that Apple would ditch its current board for a more inclusive “Council of Directors,” that would include materials suppliers, (such as the Congolese miners romantically called ‘artisanal’ – aka desperately poor people including children, digging dangerous holes in the earth to source rare earth metals that we need for our batteries, phones, laptops etc)  factory representatives (working for a pittance), app developers, store employees, and “individuals who stand for future generations and the planet.”

The video then showed Cook describing an Apple-branded ActDifferent.net, a takeoff on the company’s “Think Different” slogan.

Sadly, it was fake news, and the speech was a deepfake video. It was the work of a coalition between members of Extinction Rebellion and The Yes Men, to call out Apple’s responsibility to its global stakeholders and the planet, designed to show us what true corporate social responsibility could look like.

The “iPhone Infinity” video press release told users they could repair and upgrade their own devices, thereby reducing the toll electronic waste takes on the planet, reduce resource extraction and emissions from mining and manufacturing, and reduce downstream emissions from packaging, transportation, and shipping.

Incidentally the ‘Right to Repair’ Act passed last year in the UK excludes mobile phones.

“Our planet is breaking down, unable to cope with the ever-increasing demands of

global corporations and the pollution this creates,” said the group. “This

is an attempt to change one of the biggest, most influential corporations of them all.

Apple may be where we put our focus, but it is just a symbol of the wider system we live

in. This campaign is an artistic performance that aims not to create chaos but to

manifest a sustainable future for everyone.”

The prank was the first of three steps to launch the Apple Alliance, a working group and network to steer the company towards greater accountability. Both Cook and his Board are invited to join the Apple Alliance. It also invites everyone else to not just talk, or think, but to join the activists who have fought for change that protects us all, do their bit to protect the environment and ‘Act Different’. Furthermore, the prioritisation of financial growth and maximum profit is questioned, and we are invited to replace it with meeting the needs of all stakeholders. This includes not just investors, but also Planet Earth, future generations and all individuals impacted by a Company’s operations, those involved in the production of the end product, from miner to  factory worker to shop worker, should all be represented on the Board of Directors.

In Sheffield, we have voluntary run repair locations working to reduce waste, such as ‘Reyt Repair’ and ‘Repair Sheffield’ (also running a Tool Bank).