Defining ethics and sustainability in jewelry

If you have been following me for any length of time, you might know a few key things – I have a dark sense of humor, I like puppies and jewelry, and I have been dedicated to using the most ethical and sustainable materials that I can find to make my jewelry.

Defining ethics and sustainability, especially in an industry that has a long history of human rights violations, begins with overwhelming amounts of information. Making choices for what materials you should use to make jewelry that meets a certain ethical standard is hard enough, but working through changing and new information makes it even harder. 

What is sustainability in jewelry?

This is going to be one of those good news/bad news answers. The good news is that there are much better options these days when sourcing jewelry materials. I can get small amounts of gold mined without the use of mercury. I can get Fairmined metals that address issues of community management and gender disparities, I can get gemstones where I know the country of origin.

The bad news is that almost all kinds of mining, even the fair and better versions, aren’t truly sustainable, they are just better than the alternatives. Anytime you displace large amounts of earth, drill into the ground, use energy and water resources to extract materials, they can’t be truly and fully sustainable. But we can do better, and that’s not nothing.

What are ethics in jewelry?

This one is a bit simpler, but broader. It means you avoid doing harm. Sounds easy, right? The issue with ethics in jewelry is that determining which metals and stones do less harm can be anywhere from difficult to impossible. When dealers and suppliers don’t disclose details about country of origin, it makes the whole “following your ethical guides” a lot harder.

How I learned to make ethical decisions in jewelry-making

When I make decisions about what to use to make my jewelry, I take in a lot of information to make my choices – metal type, stone size, stone source, ethics, and more.

When I learn new or new-to-me information and techniques, I’ll drop some materials from my line and add others. These choices are always made with considerable thought and research into the ethics and sustainability of any particular material.

Why I decided to discontinue lab-grown stones

For instance, I used to use lots of lab-grown gemstones, and I still have a few in my collection, but they have been discontinued and I won’t be buying any new lab-grown stones. I chose to do this after learning more about the lack of traceability for lab-grown stones, not to mention that most companies don’t fully disclose their energy use and the emissions generated by grown gems in laboratories.

Even for me, someone who has been actively seeking and learning about this since I started in the jewelry industry, filtering and understanding this information about which gemstones and metals are ethical is a complex, nuanced, and layered process.

How to decide on sources

Most of us are left to our own devices to make decisions without any official or effective guides. In order to cut through some of the confusion, or at least give you a peek inside my thought and decision process, I want to share with you some of the articles, websites, books, and more that have had an impact on my thinking, or that have changed my mind.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that much of the news about unethical behavior in the jewelry industry (especially regarding human rights abuses and environmental abuses) doesn’t penetrate into the public or even into the more conventional facets of the industry unless it is extra bad, or has a famous person advocating for it (see Blood Diamonds, which had a whole movie to educate people about the subject).

I’m doing a round-up of news you might have missed, blog posts, podcasts, and more to help you see the same information that I use to make my choices. This will be part of an ongoing series and is by no means a comprehensive list.

A Short List of News About Ethics in the Jewelry Industry

• If you have ever wondered why I don’t use newly mined diamonds and why I think that some of these oversight organizations like the Kimberley Process simply don’t go far enough, here’s a good article illustrating why.

• This mine was under the oversight of the Responsible Jewellery Council, and technically diamonds coming from this mine are certified by the Kimberley Process, yet human rights violations happened anyway.

• For a more in-depth report, RAID put together this detailed account.

• If you were wondering why recycled gold is a good basic, but why we should still worry about the sourcing of mined gold, Follow Better Without Mercury. Full disclosure, I have been and will continue to be a donor to the Better Without Mercury program.

• This documentary about mercury in gold mining was screened for the jewelry community and was a great distillation about why we need to get mercury out of gold mining

• Containing mining tailings (the ‘stuff’ left over from gold or diamond mining) can be highly toxic in some cases, and also need to be stored properly.  The consequences of improper storage or a lack of monitoring can result in ecological disasters and human displacement which is what happened at the Petra mine.

What questions do you have about ethics in jewelry? Add them to the comments below.