Fair Jewellery Action

In England, ethical issues in the jewelry world are in the forefront, and years ahead of US in terms of trade and public support. See a press release below.
~ Marc Choyt, Publisher

The National Association of Goldsmiths (NAG) will form an ethics working committee following the announcement by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO) and the Association of Responsible Mining (ARM) to introduce Fair Mined and Fair Trade standards for gold and precious metals.

The NAG has announced the move which will see Greg Valerio, founder of CRED Jewellery and co-founder of The Alliance for Responsible Mining and Vivien Johnston of Fifi Bijoux Luxury Ethical Jewellery, work in conjunction with the NAG’s Board to create a valuable resource for NAG members.

Enabling Relationships

Presently, creating a transparent supply chain which upholds positive ethics at every level is a complex process and one which remains inaccessible for the majority of jewellers.

Fairly traded, as well as socially and environmentally responsible resources already exist. However, the miners often lack the methods to connect with western jewellers.

Throughout the jewellery industry, a great will has been noted to work with these mining communities and to build their production capacities through enabling relationships.

“The partnership between small mining communities and UK small businesses seems a natural one, however both require some support and structure to maximise the benefits to each’ said Johnston.

Micheal Hoare, CEO of the NAG says “We are delighted to announce the formation of an ethics working committee. We hope that it will be a valuable resource for members looking to become part of an ethical supply chain”.

Johnston and Valerio have been working independently for several years to promote Fair Trade standards in Jewellery.
Johnston has been working on auditable standards and traceability formed under the British Ethical Jewellery Association (BEJA) 2007. Whilst in 2009, Valerio ‘a fair trade jeweller and activist’ was appointed by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO) and is currently working with Fairtrade Foundation in the run up to the launch of certified gold in the UK, in Feb 2011.

Valerio commented that ‘Some of the biggest reputational risks the jewellery trade faces today are directly linked to our supply chains. The NAG supply chain ethics working group has been established to research, review and resource jewellers in the UK with practical ways they can positively tackle the human rights and environmental issues linked to our industry.”

Retailers to Benefit

It is hoped that retailers will benefit from the NAG coalition which aims to support businesses in the transition to a traceable and ethical supply chain .

This significant shift towards positive ethics is set to shape the future of the UK jewellery industry.

For further information please contact Faye Hadlow, Information Manager at the NAG, at 020 7613 4445 Option 4 or faye@jewellers-online.org

Tags: Announcements, Best Practices, CSR, Ethical Jewelry, Ethics, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Gems, Fair Trade Jewelry, Gold, Rad Transparency, Responsible Mining, Transparency, Trends by Marc Choyt
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Christine Dein of Ethical Metalmiths and I have been corresponding lately about a number of issues. She co-directs Ethical Metalsmiths and has been traveling around the world with her Radical Jewelry Makeover.

The question of sustainability in context to small scale mining was addressed to both Greg Valerio and myself. As Greg is away at the moment, I answered. Below is Christina’s question, and my response.
~ Marc Choyt, Publisher, Fair Jewellery Action.

I have appreciated reading what you are both working on. It has raised a question in my mind that maybe you have already answered.

What are the long-term plans for artisanal / small-scale mining projects? As industrial mine sites have to close every 20+ years or so because the supply is gone, I can imagine that artisanal sites will face a similar situation.

Then again, the artisanal / small-scale sites might provide supply/income for a longer period of time because they are being mined at a much slower rate. What is the plan for a community that becomes dependent on mining revenue, grows into its new economic situation and then faces a diminished or consumed supply?

How will preparation for this scenario be handled? Is the idea that communities might evolve out of a mining based economy into another one; that they will need to create new economies to survive on? I am just curious and wonder how the project will address this.

———————————

First, artisan small scale mining (ASM) done with hand tools can provide economic benefit that will last for last a long time. Sapphires have been mined in Sri Lanka by artisan miners since before the time of the Buddha. Deposits of other gemstones as well as rubies in Burma have also generated revenues for the local economy for hundreds of years. A more recent example of large gem deposits that have not yet been tapped is in Greenland. William Rohtert, who has documented high value ruby deposits, told me that small scale ruby mining in Greenland could supply the Inuit with a viable economy for hundreds of years as well.

Large scale mining, in contrast, is focused on extracting minerals as quickly and efficiently as possible. Their reason to exist is not to help in local jobs and economy—that is a by product. Publicly traded companies are mandated by law to maximize profit for the company, employees and shareholders. Consequently, huge amounts of value are exported from the community to justify the venture, leaving very little behind.

What takes Oro Verde two years to accomplish might take large scale mining two weeks. What might take a LSM mine twenty years to clear out might well provide a small ASM community for a hundred years or more. Even if an ASM community lasts twenty years, during that time, money will filter into the local economy to a much greater degree. More value will remain within the local economy.

With LSM, in contrast, after that twenty years, the community will be left with practically nothing. Their highest paid workers are generally ex-pats imported to that country. The likelihood of a strong local economic foundation is much greater in ASM than LSM.

Yet, I would not consider any mining scenario truly sustainable, even though LSM companies, such as Rio Tinto, have created entire publicity campaigns around their “sustainability.” First, mining is monumentally damaging to eco-systems. Boom and busts have been common in the mining industry throughout time. But from these resources entire, long lasting economic foundations have been created. A massive amount of infrastructure was generated in California and even beyond as a result of it’s gold rush. .

The cutting edge question is, how can these ASM opportunities be nurtured in such a way to create strong infrastructure and capacity that will outlast the mineral resource? This gets into grass roots development and creating capacity in the poor ASM communities. It involves dealing with massive and institutional corruption in developing countries. There is no easy way, but there is great potential. ASM provides the vast majority of material in the entire jewelry supply chain—some say up to 90% of all gemstones.

Hopefully, fair trade institutions will not be afraid of getting their hands dirty with small groups. The Diamond Development Initiative and the Alliance for Responsible Mining have created pathways that provide examples of what might be possible. Our efforts as jewelers to connect those ASM communities directly to retail our retail customer also helps.

Part of the mission of Fair Jewellery Action is to support these types of initiatives so that we can increase the beneficial impact of these positive developments, and support the grass roots local economies of vibrant ASM communities.

Tags: CSR, Editorial, Environment, Ethical Jewelry, Ethics, Fair Trade Jewelry, Green Wash, Interviews, Manufacturing, Rad Transparency, Responsible Mining, Social Initiatives, Transparency, Trends by Marc Choyt
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In a press release on CSR Wire, STR Responsible Sourcing announced a partnership with the Responsible Jewellery Council. They will be auditing RJC’s supply chain. STR Responsible Sourcing categorized their initiative with the RJC in the press release as “fair trade.”

The STR Responsible Sourcing initiative with the RJC is similar to fair trade only by the virtue of it being a third party certification system. The Fair Labeling Organization (FLO) also has a third party certification. But the similarities between RJC’s and fair trade end there. The RJC is not fair trade. STR Responsible Sourcing’s categorization of their initiative as fair trade in their release on the CSR wire is inaccurate and misleading.

~ Marc Choyt, Publisher, Fair Jewelry Action

Tags: Announcements, CSR, Editorial, Ethics, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Jewelry, Manufacturing, Rad Transparency, Spin, Transparency, Trends by Marc Choyt
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by Marc Choyt and Greg Valerio

We welcome the opportunity to comment on RJC’s latest documents. We recognise the challenges and see the logic in the initial steps taken to assure chain of custody.

Fair Jewellery Action (FJA) is a new network being established by Marc Choyt of Reflective Images (USA) and Greg Valerio (UK), (founder of CRED Jewellery and a founding board member of ARM) whose aim is to draw together the breadth of responsible jewellers who are committed to transparency and traceability in the jewellery supply chain to ensure the highest possible standards that reflect these crucial values.

Below is FJA’s comments on the RJC chain of custody discussion paper.

RJC offered a variety of supply chain custody models to comment on. In our experience if RJC is going to fulfill its stated objectives of ensuring consumer confidence in the gold and diamond jewellery supply chain, then the only two credible supply chain models that are open for it to pursue would be ‘track & trace’ and ‘bulk commodity’. Although these systems are more expensive to implement in the early stages, we have found that with the required will, clear expertise and the current profit returns that leading RJC members post, it is within the RJC’s grasp and they are achievable.

In our experience as leading ethical and fair trade jewellers the only system that can give total assurance to customers of jewellery products is a system that ensures full 100% traceability from mine to retail.

Mass Balance and Book and Claim will not, based upon our experience in the fine jewellery sector, deliver on the stated mission objectives of the RJC. In fact we believe that it will leave the RJC open to the accusation of green washing as these approaches separate and disconnect the source from the consumer. As all jewellers know, gold and diamonds are not just commodities that are sold, they are aspirations and emotions that are marketed and it is in these marketed aspirations that the true current value of our product lies. We understand the moral disconnect that currently exists in the jewellery sector between source and finished product which is creating the difficulties we are now struggling with, but a mass balance/book and claim system will not eradicate bad practice, it will only serve to distract from it, leaving our industry rightfully open to the accusation of misleading the consumer.

We also offer these broader comments on RJC’s overall position;

• RJC needs to adopt the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights as a core principle. A commitment to this Declaration would be a strong statement of advocacy toward producer communities.

• RJC should broaden its governance to include civil society groups and organisations that can represent the majority of the mining sector; namely the small-scale miners. Currently the governance body of the RJC is only representative of the minority in our industry and supply chain.

• Standards and leadership need to involve a wide variety of cross sector and multi-sector stakeholders working together. At present, only members within the jewellery sector are involved in the initiative. Respected stakeholders in civil society are needed to monitor members. It is the only way to credibly assure that business interests will not override environmental concerns and culture in producer communities.

• Within the multi-stakeholder context, a clear and open grievance policy that is transparent and open to the public must be implemented. This is the best way to assure producer communities have channels to air concerns.

• For membership to mean anything, retailers need to be transparent about the sourcing of their product, revealing at least what is mine to market custody and what is not.

Here is a link to the RJC’s Chain of Custody Paper. http://www.fairjewelry.org/pdfs/RJC_Chain_of_custody_paper_19_April_2010.pdf

Tags: Best Practices, CSR, Editorial, Environment, Ethical Jewelry, Ethics, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Jewelry, Green Wash, Rad Transparency, Transparency, Trends by admin
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Introduction:

Here’s a press release about a social entrepreneurial initiative that is already garnering attention from organization outside of the jewelry sector. The focus is stated here:

“Shane, Rachel, and Jesse measure the progress of The Clarity Project by the number of children educated, crops planted, and health clinics opened, rather than solely relying on market share and profits.”

~ Marc Choyt, Publisher
[Read more →]

Tags: Announcements, Best Practices, CSR, Ethical Jewelry, Rad Transparency, Transparency, Trends by Marc Choyt
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This is an ongoing documentation of a series of dialogs between members of our Manufacturing Group, charged with the task of developing exceptional standards for jewelry manufacturing. Follow this link, http://www.fairjewelry.org/madison-dialogue-manufacturing-committee for full review of past discussions including the entire principles and standards document that we are reviewing: Fair Trade Jewelry Manufacturing Principles and Standards – Working Draft
[Read more →]

Tags: CSR, Ethical Jewelry, Ethics, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Jewelry, M. D. Manufacturing, Madison Dialogue, Manufacturing by Marc Choyt
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This is an ongoing documentation of a series of dialogs between members of our Manufacturing Group, charged with the task of developing exceptional standards for jewelry manufacturing. Follow this link, http://www.fairjewelry.org/madison-dialogue-manufacturing-committee for full review of past discussions. The entire principles and standards document can be found here: Fair Trade Jewelry Manufacturing Principles and Standards – Working Draft
[Read more →]

Tags: CSR, Ethics, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Jewelry, M. D. Manufacturing, Madison Dialogue, Manufacturing, Rad Transparency, Transparency, Trends by Marc Choyt
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By Patrick Schein

(Patrick Schein)

The figures speak for themselves. The World Gold Council, the organisation formed and funded by the world’s leading gold mining companies, has published the gold statistics for 2009 and they are quite eloquent in regard to gold recycling.

Globally, in 2009, the recycling of existing stocks of gold, mostly jewelry, almost equaled the demand for gold of the jewelry industry! Nearly 1,700 tons of already mined gold, mostly jewelry, were melted and refined in 2009 when, during the same period of time, manufacture of new jewelry absorbed a little over 1750 tonnes of gold. The coverage of the jewelry industry worldwide by reclaimed gold is therefore more than 95%!
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Tags: Announcements, CSR, Editorial, Ethics, Fair Trade, Gold, Mining, Rad Transparency, Responsible Mining, Transparency, Trends by Patrick Schein
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Introduction:

This is an ongoing documentation of a series of dialogs between members of our Manufacturing Group, charged with the task of developing exceptional standards for jewelry manufacturing. Follow this link, http://www.fairjewelry.org/madison-dialogue-manufacturing-committee for full review of past discussions. The entire principles and standards document can be found here.

In this portion, I introduce the Third Standard, Worker Safety. This was accepted by the group as is, with only one comment, a strong endorsement of the entire process from a Project Head of Fairmade Jewelry, Vukani-Ubuntu, South Africa which is represented in our group by Mari Lee.
~Marc Choyt, Publisher, Fairjewelry.org
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Tags: Announcements, Best Practices, CSR, Editorial, Ethical Jewelry, Ethics, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Jewelry, M. D. Manufacturing, Madison Dialogue, Manufacturing, Rad Transparency, Social Initiatives, Transparency, Trends by Marc Choyt
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Meghan Connolly Haupt, a regular contributor to fairjewelry.org, has launched her own jewelry line.

April 8, 2010 – New York, NY – No longer do consumers need to sacrifice sustainability for luxury or their values for beauty. Meghan Connolly Haupt jewelry launches today as the first sustainable fine jewelry brand. Going well beyond just “conflict-free,” Meghan offers consumers beautiful, finely crafted jewelry that they can feel good about purchasing, gifting and wearing.

(Meghan Connolly Haupt)

As a pioneer of the sustainable fine jewelry movement, Meghan creates simple, classic and sophisticated designs that often allow for the unexpected. As examples, the Infinity Necklace incorporates a diamond toggle closure rather than a clasp, and the Reveal Earrings have a slight torque to expose the internal row of pave-set Australian blue sapphires. The Asymmetrical Necklace can be worn vertically or horizontally, while the Diamond Line Earrings can be worn long or short to best complement a look.
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Tags: Announcements, Best Practices, CSR, Ethical Jewelry, Ethics, Fair Trade Gems, Fair Trade Jewelry, Rad Transparency, Transparency, Trends by Meghan Connolly Haupt
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