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Brilliant Earth |
What makes a gift of fine jewelry truly beautiful isn’t the
sparkle of its diamonds or the weight of its gold — at least not in the eyes of
Toby Pomeroy, a jewelry designer in Corvallis, Oregon. No, the true beauty lies
in the story behind the piece of jewelry and, for this designer, that story is
not just about romance, it’s about sustainability.
To Pomeroy, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) isn’t some
politically correct catchphrase to make consumers and businesses feel good
about what they are buying and selling. It’s a “way of thinking” that puts
ethics and respect — both for the artisanal miners who comb through the dirt
searching for precious gems, as well as for the earth that produces them — at
the top of the corporate pyramid.
“For me, it’s about the big picture,” Pomeroy says. “I want
to see a paradigm shift in awareness, in all industries, that focuses on
business practices that will bring about a sustainable future.”
A perfect illustration of that shift is the story of
Coodmilla Ltd., a cooperative mine located in the town of La Llanada in the
Andes Mountains in Narino, Colombia. The artisanal miners there, Pomeroy says,
meet the standards set by the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM). With
proceeds from the gold they mine, the 167-member cooperative funds projects
such as water reclamation and provides retirement accounts, insurance and
healthcare for the miners and their families.
“It’s delightful to offer my customers gold that has that
kind of a story,” Pomeroy says, adding that he can also provide his customers
with peace of mind by ensuring them that the gold they are buying has been
ethically sourced. “I can tell them the community the gold came from. I can
actually introduce them to the miners who panned for it.”
For Eric Grossberg, co-founder of Brilliant Earth, a jewelry
design and retail company in San Francisco, social responsibility is the
foundation of his business. “Brilliant Earth’s approach is that ethical
concerns are, and always have been, at the center of our mission,” Grossberg
says. “We didn’t set out to sell jewelry and then think about how we could do
that responsibly. We were founded with the mission of selling ethically
sourced, eco-friendly jewelry. And that’s still our purpose.”
Tracing diamonds to their source to ensure they are not
tainted with violence, human rights abuses or environmental degradation are the
ingredients, Grossberg says, that create corporate responsibility. “In
addition, we accomplish change by funding initiatives to help artisanal diamond
mining communities recover from past abuses and take advantage of their diamond
wealth.” Grossberg adds that such steps should, and could, be implemented by
the jewelry industry today and “not at some distant point in the future.”
Irresponsible mining and sourcing of minerals and gems
through abusive means — child labor, poverty-level wages, government corruption
— are paradoxical for the jewelry industry, Grossberg says, because those
minerals and gems are supposed to be symbols of love and commitment. And while
Grossberg says his customers care about these issues because “they care about
their fellow human beings,” there’s more to it. “Artisanal gold mining is the
leading cause of mercury pollution. It is partly because of this mining that
some fish are becoming unsafe to eat,” he says.
To avoid the potential hazards of mining, Todd Reed, a
jewelry designer in Boulder, Colorado, uses only recycled goods in crafting his
jewelry and has stepped away from mining altogether. “I don’t believe in
mining. There are enough raw materials out there already,” Reed says. “Mining uses
chemicals and takes up the land. By recycling, we don’t have to deal with the
controversies associated with mining.”
Despite the global community’s efforts to stem the flow of
“conflict” or “blood” diamonds into the supply chain through the Kimberley
Process, there is still much violence and abuse associated with the sourcing of
diamonds, according to Arvind Ganesan, director of the business and human
rights division at Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization (NGO)
based in New York City.
In countries like Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe, Ganesan says,
governments and private security companies control some diamond-mining areas
through force and have driven locals from their resource-rich lands. Corruption
and poor governance in Papua New Guinea, Ganesan says, have prevented the
locals from benefiting from the country’s enormous abundance of gold and other
extractive reserves. In addition, he alleges human rights abuses — including
gang rapes and torture — are being committed against local miners and
demonstrators at the mining sites in the country by private mine security
guards as well as by local police.
“There is no regulation in place to stop diamonds and gold
from these areas from hitting the marketplace,” Ganesan says. “Retailers must
take it upon themselves to control their supply chain as much as possible.” And
to that end, Ganesan sees a positive trend. “Companies, including high-end
retailers, are becoming more diligent about their sourcing, which is a good
thing.”
One such company, London-based Gemfields, one of the world’s
leading suppliers of colored gemstones, is at the forefront of ethical
sourcing, according to Ian Harebottle, the company’s chief executive officer
(CEO). “Not only do we comply with all the employment, environmental and
community laws of the countries in which we are operating,” Harebottle says,
“but we aim to go further than what the law requires.”
Ganesan recognizes that there are positive stories related
to the diamond trade — such as in Botswana, where diamonds have been an
economic boon — and that the abuses associated with it are not universally
rampant. “That is not to say that the diamond industry is littered with human
rights abuses or that it’s a persistent problem everywhere,” he says. “But what
is the case is that there are too many areas where abuses still exist.”
Widespread poverty combined with unstable governments in regions of abundant
natural resources present prime conditions for abuse, Ganesan adds.
But the diamond industries in countries like Botswana, South
Africa, Namibia and Angola are models of how the diamond trade can uplift local
communities, according to Dr. Benjamin Chavis, senior strategic adviser at the
Diamond Empowerment Fund (DEF), a nonprofit international organization in New
York City that supports education initiatives in nations where diamonds are a
natural resource. “The diamond industry in these countries has helped to
improve the economy, build infrastructure, schools and hospitals,” says Chavis,
who was encouraged by Nelson Mandela in 2006 to set up DEF to create awareness
of the positive effects of the diamond industry, as well as to support and
promote education initiatives in countries where diamonds are a natural
resource.
Government stability, Chavis agrees, is the foundation for
progress but in the absence of stable governance, the private sector could step
in. “Industry can be a catalyst for democracy and stability,” he says. “It’s in
the interest of corporations to work with governments and it’s in the interest
of governments to work with corporations.”
During an April 2014 conference at the United Nations (UN) —
hosted by the World Jewelry Federation (CIBJO) — focusing on the jewelry
industry’s commitment to social responsibility, Melissa Powell, head of
Strategy and Partnerships and Business for Peace at the UN Global Compact,
highlighted the role of corporations in communities. “While we cannot ignore
the fact that the private sector may at times have a negative impact upon the
society,” Powell said, “it also has the capacity to bring about positive
change.”
Components of Gemfields’ social responsibility creed,
Harebottle says, include paying competitive wages, encouraging a constant
learning environment and fostering health and safety standards. He says
Gemfields supports several primary schools and local clinics and has set up two
farming cooperatives. Environmentally, he notes, the company ensures that
harmful chemicals are not used in its mines and backfills its pits to promote
proper drainage and revegetation.
While ethical sourcing and planet-friendly practices might
reflect a company’s conscience, they are also good for business. “Based on our
own observations, we’ve seen rising demand for ethical jewelry among young
people and with older customers too,” Grossberg says. “We’re trying to
demonstrate that demand for responsible jewelry exists and that other jewelers
could benefit by adopting similar responsible practices.”
Donald Feaver and Benedict Sheehy, professors at the
Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT University in Melbourne who
developed Branded Trust, an online system that allows companies to implement
and track their social responsibility efforts, said during April’s CIBJO
conference that properly applied Corporate Social Responsibility policies can
result in a 2 percent gain in companies’ bottom lines.
Harebottle also expresses his commitment in practical terms.
“Our aim as an ethical mining company is to transcend the bottom line, but that
doesn’t mean we’ve lost sight of the bottom line,” he says. “On the contrary,
conducting our business as we do makes sound commercial sense.” Spreading this
market-driven message, in Grossberg’s estimation, will create the necessary
pressure for the mining industry to reform.
If current marketing messages are any indication, then
companies seem to be heading in the direction of “sustainability.” Gemfields,
for instance, markets itself as “the world’s leading supplier of responsibly
sourced gemstones.” The company also uses, Harebottle says, film and
photography to illustrate its ethical mining and promote its CSR efforts.
“Using an engaging medium to explain, in clear simple language, how your
operation works instills greater understanding, and therefore confidence, in
the consumer,” he says.
Gemfields by Art Creations |
At Brilliant Earth, corporate responsibility is not a “side
project” in the company’s marketing, Grossberg says. “When customers shop for a
diamond at Brilliant Earth, our jewelry specialist can answer their questions
about our sourcing. And when customers go online to our diamond database,
they’ll see an origin for each of our diamonds.”
However companies market their sustainability efforts, or
whether or not they take on the mantle of corporate responsibility in the first
place, Pomeroy believes it’s a matter of paying now or paying later. “If we
don’t do what’s right today, it might not affect the immediate bottom line but
we’re going to have to pay for the negative impacts of irresponsibility in the
future,” he says. “We must take a broader view. Viewing our lives and
businesses as separate from the rest of the world is a colossal mistake.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - June 2014. To subscribe click here.