Smartphone-enabled social change: Evidence from the Fairphone case?

Specifically, this study draws on lifestyle movements as the nexus between consumption, degrowth and technology. Three core concepts are found to influence the attendance to degrowth-related consumer movements: a sustainable lifestyle, alternative forms of consumption and social commitment, all of which are assumed to have a positive effect. Empirically this paper draws on the case of the Fairphone, a company that applies sustainable characteristics to a smartphone. Data collected in a survey via online fora of the Fairphone from November 4-29, 2015 are analyzed using a structural equation modeling with partial least squares. Results indicate that a sustainable lifestyle represents the dominant factor explaining the involvement with the Fairphone. Surprisingly, the findings show that alternative consumption seems to negatively influence the involvement with the Fairphone and social commitment seems to play a minor role in the model. These aspects point to the Fairphone as a technical artifact, centered on a choice for a sustainable lifestyle. Future research needs to reach clarification on the relationship of alternative consumption and degrowth related movements and whether the negative effect is case specific or beyond. Furthermore, future studies need to delve deeper into lifestyle decisions as a leverage point towards degrowth, especially on lifestyles understood as a from of activism to change contemporary society.