Canadian jewellery exporter Sorbet Sapphire recently launched a new strategic partnership with Capricorn Gems, an Australian gemstone supplier committed to ethical sourcing.
Sure, we know these things are pretty—most of us wouldn’t be in this business if we didn’t love gems and jewellery. That said, it can be easy to lose perspective between the literal grind of cutting (and the drudgery of paperwork and running a business) and the glimpses of the darker side of this trade we are involved in. Many of the ethical supply chain options available to large firms (such as buying the entire output of a mine, for instance) are not feasible for businesses like mine. Nevertheless, there are ways to reflect our ethics in our businesses. In this article, I will describe a few approaches to ethical sourcing which I have observed over my career, then outline the benefits and drawbacks to each.
It is a well-known fact: jewellery buyers have ethical concerns about where and how we source materials. While this certainly puts pressure on our trade, it is also a good (and understandable) awareness.
The ethical jewellery cemetery is full of tombstones of good intentions, inscribed with the words: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (i.e. “the more that changes, the more it’s the same thing”).
In August of this year, JB contributor, Kyle Abram, spoke to Robin Erfe as research for his upcoming article, ‘Where Black lives don’t matter to jewellers.’
Currently, mining for product used to make jewellery continues just as it always has, with large-scale mines supplying 80 per cent of gold and diamonds and extracting resources as fast as possible.
Boosting customer confidence and enhancing industry goodwill are central to the latest offering from the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA).
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