Conflict Gold, DRC, 60 Minutes and Jewelers of America’s Spin: Inside Information for Consumers To Purchase Ethically Sourced Jewelry
~ By Marc Choyt, Publisher
Introduction:
“Reinforcing Confidence in the diamond and gold supply chain.” (Responsible Jewellery Council’s Website)
60 Minutes to Matt Runci, head of RJC and Jewelers of America: “Does your certification mean, for example, the gold didn’t come from Congo?”
Matt Runci, JA and Repsonsible Jewelry Council: “Source of origin is not yet a part of the Council’s Framework.”
Dear Jewelry Purchasers,
If you watched the 60 Minutes segment on Conflict Gold, you are concerned about the gold in your jewelry. You should be.
Jewelers of America (JA), the largest trade lobbying group of its kind, is very concerned about your reaction. It has sent out a “Key Message and Questions & Answers” letter to independent jewelers throughout America.
Having obtained the letter, I can tell you it has two purposes. The first and most obvious reason for the letter is to coach your local jeweler on how to handle your questions and concerns about conflict gold from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The second purpose of this letter is more subtle, but important for background information. It is to promote the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) to independent jewelers as a strong leader in these issues. Jewelers of America is a central player in the RJC. Matt Runci, who was interviewed in the 60 Minute segment, is head of both JA and RJC
I am writing this post to help you cut through the spin. The unfortunate fact is that the current jewelry supply chain, from a human rights and environmental point of view, is massively toxic.
Reading the rest of this article, you will get the information you need to make a difference.
“Key Messages”
In the letter to jewelers sent out by JA, not meant for the public, jewelers were given four key talking points which I will go through one by one.
1.) Jewelers are to tell you that they believe gold should be mined responsibly and sustainably.
Reality: Of course, everyone wants responsibility and sustainability. But the fact is that most jewelry in the US comes from Asian countries that don’t care where the gold is purchased from.
In the US, except for just a few companies, sourcing issues rank low to non-existent as a factor in a jeweler’s purchasing decision making.
Even a sincere expression of concern for the issue without an offering of jewelry made with 100% recycled or traceable gold shows that your jeweler just does not get the importance of these issues.
Tell them that you’ll shop somewhere else. It might help wake them up.
Another bit of spin here is the notion of “sustainable” jewelry. Large mining, well represented in the Responsible Jewelry Council (RJC), are branding themselves and gold mining as “sustainable.” That’s ridiculous. How can extraction of a limited resource creating, in the case of gold, massive amounts of cyanide or mercury pollution, be “sustainable?”
In fact, precious metal extraction in developing countries with poor regulatory power is often a “resource curse” for African nations that get very little back.
2. Jewelers are to tell you that they are actively seeking in writing, commitments from suppliers that assure a gold supply that does not fund wars.
Reality: Only a very few jewelers are taking this type of action. Besides, what is happening in the DRC is tragic, but in reality, the focus on it is a bit of a red herring. When considering the entire gold supply chain, only a tiny amount funds wars. The issue is “dirty gold”. You can assume that any gold jewelry from untraceable sources contains at least some dirty gold– gold mined somewhere in the world, causing environmental and human rights atrocities.
Do not purchase gold unless it can be traced to a source or it is recycled.
3. Jewelers are to tell you that they support trade organizations to pursue good practices. The (RJC) is their main one.
This is where the letter gets interesting for insiders in the jewelry sector, such as myself. RJC, which represents the big boys club in the jewelry sector, are creating a set of standards to “reinforce confidence in the diamond and gold supply chain.” However, international organizations, promoting a civil society, declined to support the RJC initiatives.
How can you reinforce confidence without barring your members from using dirty gold?. Since business from RJC members is huge, they are afraid to say, as I do in my editorial, “The emperor has no clothes.”
4. The fourth “key message” mentions that only 0.02% of the gold in the world is coming from the DRC and that they believe that even a small amount of this gold in the supply chain is too much.
Reality: This explanation is true, but again, as serious as this conflict gold is, it is still part of the larger issue of dirty gold, which is widespread. Your job, as a consumer, is to demand nothing less than 100% traceability in the precious metal that makes up the jewelry you are purchasing. Otherwise, you are contributing to the problem.
A few years ago, I was at the most important trade show in the jewelry business promoting ethical sourcing. I was largely ignored. In fact, when I tried to talk to a major buyer about ethical sourcing issues, she looked at me as if I was from the moon.
But now things are changing. More companies are recognizing that their supply chain makes them very vulnerable. You can make a difference. If just 5% of people purchasing jewelry raised these issues, much of the jewelry supply chain would undergo massive, rapid change for the better.
Jewelers will pay attention to your views.
Sincerely yours,
Marc Choyt, Publisher, fairjewelry.org
Dear Marc, Concerning the issue of .02% of gold coming from the DRC. This fact is only related to transparent production. It is not possible to say how much gold is coming out of the DRC illegally. Also it does not address the real issues of poverty & employment that are the big drivers behind the gold rush in DRC. These are the majority issues that need to be addressed. The work of ‘fairtrade and fairmined’ are addressing exactly these issues in small scale mining. Jewelers in America should begin to call for fairtrade gold in the US market. In truth nothing short of a Kimberley Process in the gold world will really be able to deal with the consumer confidence issue.
Dear Greg,
Thanks for your comment. I totally agree with your view. We don’t know how much gold is leaking out of the DRC.
But what I’ve been thinking about most over the past few days is how RJC and JA right now, have the power to transform the dirty gold issue in the jewelry sector. All they need to do is tell their members to have traceable gold for their entire supply chain within a certain time period– like three years. Then, a major part of the entire jewelry sector would have to change. It would have a massive positive effect. Fairtrade gold would be part of this effort.
I don’t have much faith in a Kimberley Process. It doesn’t work for diamonds and it probably wouldn’t work for gold.
What might work, however, is leadership that is pro-active and courageous among the “big boys” club in the jewelry sector. Right now, unfortunately, it is lacking. For Runci in the interview to abrogate responsibility was totally lame.
RJC/JA are too focused on branding themselves as “sustainable” and “responsible” and spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars creating auditing systems that are not respected or endorsed by “civil society” in the international community.
They are building structures on quicksand, to the determent of the entire jewelry sector. Meanwhile, people like ourselves can use their actions as a “Blue Ocean” marketing opportunity for authentic ethical sourcing.
Ethical sourcing of metals and gems is one of the greatest challenges we face as a “sustainable jewelry” company. Consumers hold the power to make it more accessible by driving demand. Supporting those companies that demonstrate a commitment to sustainability is key. The traditional jewelry industry is largely ignoring the issues while a growing group of small companies is pushing the sustainable jewelry movement forward.
An interesting article. Good work, Marc. There is very definitely a core market of persons who care about humanity and who want to express themselves with humanity. Trying to define what this might mean in the jewelry industry is truly of interest to everyone of us involved. Everyone from the artesenal miner to the craftsperson to the distributor and to the re-seller and to the eventual customer who is the persaon who wears and enjoys and shows off the artistic creations in the myriad forms of personal ornament.
For those of us who do not have a TV or follow the media version of what is supposed to be going on, fill me in on something as there might be others like who do not know.
Is somebody in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) financing a war by mining gold and selling it to refiners?
Again, thanks for the article; it has got me thinking.