How We Lead And Support The Ethical Jewelry Sourcing Movement And Fair Trade Gold
Founder of Fair Jewelry Action, USA
For years now, I have been publishing on the website I launched, www.fairjewelry.org, and writing articles in seminal trade magazines on ethical sourcing. I co-founded Fair Jewelry Action (FJA) with Greg Valerio, a jeweler and activist who recently was honored as the Global Activist of the Year by the UK Sunday Observer. FJA is a human rights and environmental justice organization which has over forty members from all over the world. It is the most important forum for ethical jewelry issues online. It also serves as a community platform, helping bring together grassroots initiatives for change.
Other activities have included creating a Fair Trade Manufacturing Standards and Principle document — a project that took three years to complete. I volunteered to lead this out of the Madison Dialogue meeting, a cross sector gathering at the World Bank with key figures in the ethical jewelry sourcing community. I regularly consult, encourage and offer free advice to jewelers, the press, students and others interested in our activities. I also, with the help of our team, converted my own company, Reflective Images, to using only recycled metals, fair trade gems wherever possible, and now have brought the opportunity of fair trade gold to America and our own collection.
I have wanted to sell fair trade gold for years. A few months after the fairtrade and fairmined gold label was introduced into the UK market in February, 2011, it became clear that Fair Trade USA was not going to take the initiative to host the label in the US. I wrote to the CEO of the Fair Labeling Organization, suggesting that my organization, Fair Jewelry Action USA, be the license holder. This was not possible, because of contractual agreements between FLO and Fair Trade USA. At that point, I began to brainstorm with Toby Pomeroy, a jeweler, friend and board member with the Association For Responsible Mining, Christina Miller of Ethical Metalsmiths, and Greg Valerio to find a means to introduce the gold without FLO certification.
We found a refiner, a source and began putting surveys out to jewelers to determine the level of interest in our idea to bring fair trade gold to the US. Once Fair Trade USA and FLO split, the game switched. In late October, 2011, with the collaboration of Ethical Metalsmiths, I held a closed door, ethical sourcing meeting at my house in Santa Fe, New Mexico with the twelve key people in ethical sourcing issues in North America. Also represented there were the voices of NGOs: Fair Trade USA and the ED of Earthworks Action Network, sponsor of the No Dirty Gold campaign. The Director of Training Resources for the Environmental Community facilitated the meeting.
The group strongly supported the launch of fairtrade and fairmined gold broadly into the US market as a first step. At present, I continue to work with my colleagues to make this a reality. In the meantime, while waiting for certification, I am offering fair trade gold to our wedding ring customers.
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