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Jewelry house Chopard has announced the launch of a community platform between gemstones and jewelry houses around shared commitments to customers and the preservation of the planet.
Chopard, Kering, LVMH, Richemont, Swarovski, and Tiffany & Co. and gemstone mining companies Gemfields and Muzo (which form the Coloured Gemstones Working Group or CGWG), are joining forces to launch the Gemstones and Jewellery Community Platform.
This platform will be an open and available resource center for the entire gemstone and jewelry industry. A unique capacity-building initiative for the jewelry industry that would induce positive change and come directly from within.
The platform is freely accessible to all companies that are part of the gem and jewelry industry, regardless of the stage they are working on, from mining to retail. It is structured around ten sustainability commitments for responsible sourcing and production.
These resources, which companies can use to inform themselves, contain more than 40 sustainability topics relevant to the colored gemstone sector, ranging from responsible sourcing rules to respect for human rights. The platform also includes self-assessment tools for companies to better understand areas of excellence and improvement.
The CGWG has collaborated with various industry bodies, such as the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), the leading standards and certification system for the global watch and jewelry industry, as well as with the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) and other partners to help harmonize responsible sourcing and production.
In the context of colored gemstones, which are often mined in remote areas by artisanal miners and traded in markets on the other side of the world or in international trading centers, responsible sourcing is particularly complex. Among other things, the platform offers an open-access, step-by-step digital due diligence tool that all market participants can use to help build a transparent and traceable supply chain.
The platform was announced at the 14th Forum on Responsible Mining Supply Chains, hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The forum brought together government, business, and civil society representatives to share best practices and lessons learned on responsible sourcing.
Over the past decade, the OECD has been heavily involved in sustainable procurement issues. Indeed, the OECD guidelines enable companies to identify, assess and manage the potential risks associated with the extraction, processing, and use of minerals and other natural resources.
“Our goal is to democratize the notion of sustainability so that it is accessible to even the smallest businesses and individual artisans. By providing access to knowledge, we can take a step toward transforming the lives and livelihoods of those working in the colored gemstone supply chain,” says Dr. Assheton Stewart Carter, CEO of TDI Sustainability, the consulting firm that provides technical support to CGWG.
“We began our Journey to Sustainable Luxury in 2013 with the hope of introducing new practices in the sourcing of raw materials used in our industry. Through this initiative, Chopard has successfully sourced responsibly mined colored gemstones for various designs. However, there is still a long way to go to improve sustainable practices in colored stones. The work undertaken by the Gemstones and Jewellery Community Platform is making progress in this regard and we are delighted to associate our House with these efforts,” says Caroline Scheufele, Co-President and Artistic Director of Chopard.
This new platform is available here.
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