Worlds first Ethically produced Smartphone

http://www.news.com.au/technology/smartphones/fairphone-the-first-ethical-smartphone-avoids-using-materials-from-war-zones-or-dangerous-factories/story-fn6vihic-1226723179963

Worlds first Ethically produced Smartphone
Mr Van Abel the man behind the Fairphone says it avoids sourcing materials from conflict zones or using factories with poor labour practices, taking as its model the coffee and banana "fair-trade'' industry.

More than 15,000 people have already ordered the new handset, which sells for 325 euros ($464) and is due to start shipping in December, but designer Bas van Abel said ethical business was far from easy.

The ambition to building a smartphone embodying social and environmental values all along the production chain, had initially focused on finding a way to ethically obtain coltan, a mineral which is vital for mobile phones whose extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo feeds one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II.

Awesome; consider me a future customer if this makes it off the ground.

Apple and Samsung are giants in need of a shake-up, he believes.

"Samsung, Apple and all the big players have made so many innovations in the last years that they actually made the existence of Fairphone a possibility,'' he stressed.

"Fundamentally, the big companies are stuck,'' he explained. "It's not fun for them to read in the newspapers that another Chinese worker has committed suicide in one of your factories.

"They would do something, but the system prohibits them,'' he stated. "This is why we want to change it.''

These entities are legally bound (at least in the U.S.) to make the highest possible profit for their shareholders. The entire corporate system needs a shake-up.

"to make the highest possible profit for their shareholders."
I think is the core of the worlds problems.

At the small-scale level, it worked; you wouldn't want to invest in a venture in which the managers weren't dedicated to making money, of course. But as corporations got bigger, they became havens for sociopaths like the Catholic Church is for pedophiles ...

Disagree
Even at a small scale level it is unethical and immoral and society should stop it at the source.

A fair return, fine. Maximum possible profit is wrong and deterimental to society. Society has just cause to Protect itself from individuals that at deterimental to the community at large(thats why people go to jail) Maximum profit is only slightly less deterimental that outright theft, is on par with fraud or deception. It is defintely Much less determental than Media Piraicy.