NY Times Article on “Ethical Gold”
Saw this today, thought it would be of interest to everyone.
Lisa,(Still remembering more things that the thief stole out of my
car last week drat it!) Topanga, CA USA
With This Ethical Ring I Thee Wed
By Kirk Johnson
MANY of the shoppers who happen into Leber Jeweler's modest
brick storefront in Western Springs, Ill., just outside
Chicago, don't know much, if anything, about the social and
environmental costs of industrial gold mining.
Brian Leber, the president and owner of the 85-year-old
company, is happy to enlighten. He can then quietly suggest a
piece of jewelry that makes the concerns about mining moot:
his Earthwise Jewelry line, which Leber manufactures using
recycled gold.
"I try not to pontificate," Mr. Leber said. "But I do try to
educate people on the issues."
In the last few years, as the outsize environmental impact of
gold mining has been exposed, jewelers E280" as the retail face
of the industry E280" have been trying to inoculate themselves
against a consumer backlash. It is not here yet, but many
people say it is sure to come.
In February eight jewelry companies E280" some small like
Leber, others giant like Zale, the nation's second largest gold
retailer after Wal- Mart E280" signed on to a national campaign
called "No Dirty Gold." The campaign was created two years ago
by a coalition of advocacy groups to highlight the issues
surrounding gold and gold mining.
The pledge is minimal in its requirements, essentially a
promise to work toward a resolution of gold's tangled issues,
rather than a solution. But many environmentalists and industry
officials say that the momentum and commitment are what
matters.
"It's like the lock has been picked, opening a door that could
lead to responsibly sourced gold," said Stephen D'Esposito, the
president and executive director of Earthworks, a mining
watchdog group in Washington that helped create the campaign.
The eight companies together represent $6.3 billion in retail
jewelry sales, or 14 percent of sales in the United States,
according to Oxfam International, a confederation of groups
that work on poverty and economic justice, and a leader of the
campaign.
Along with Zale and Leber, the other signers aRe: the Signet
Group (the parent firm of Sterling and Kay Jewelers), Helzberg
Diamonds, Fortunoff, Cartier, Piaget and Van Cleef & Arpels. As
recently as last year only Tiffany & Company had signed the "No
Dirty Gold" pledge.
Most jewelers, including Mr. Leber, say that making jewelry of
recycled gold is only a tiny piece of the answer. The deeper
question, they say, lies around the phrase "responsible
mining," and whether it is possible. About 80 percent of all
the gold mined today is fabricated into jewelry.
"What does indeed constitute a responsible mining operation?"
asked Michael J. Kowalski, the chairman and chief executive of
Tiffany. "Who's there at the moment, and how do we get to where
we need to be?
The critical next step is reaching a substantive agreement on
those questions."
Tiffany buys most of its gold from a Utah mine called Bingham
Canyon that does not use cyanide, which can pollute water and
lead to the release of other pollutants like mercury. Last year
Tiffany began processing its gold itself at a plant in Rhode
Island as part of a strategy to control the supply chain.
Tiffany aims ultimately to provide customers with a "chain of
custody assurance" stating where the gold in a ring or necklace
has been, from mine to display case.
These changes are partly coming about, people in and out of
the jewelry industry say, because gold mining's environmental
and social impacts have become impossible to ignore, especially
in developing countries where political protests, corruption
and displacement of indigenous peoples have often accompanied
mining.
Because most of the known gold deposits in the world are in
microscopic form E280" the shiny nuggets of old are as dated
as the miner and his mule E280" huge industrial open-pit
mines, usually using cyanide to retrieve the metal from base
rock, are required to make mining economically viable. And
because the grades of ore are so weak, the process is hugely
destructive and wasteful, with at least 30 tons of waste rock
often needed to produce a single gold ring.
A months-long investigation by The New York Times, which led to
a four-part series last year called "The Cost of Gold," also
raised questions about how and whether communities in
developing countries consent to the mines in their midst, and
whether the long-term environmental impacts in places like
Nevada and Indonesia are being correctly assessed. Then
there's the Wal-Mart effect.
Wal-Mart's strategy for everything it sells, including gold,
is to eliminate the middleman, buy direct from suppliers and
pass the savings on to customers. Jewelers are following suit
as they try to cut costs and compete. Industry experts and
executives say the trend has nothing to do with ethics, but
that more control of supply makes the ethics debate over dirty
gold somewhat easier, because companies are already thinking
more deeply about where things come from.
"The overall theme is know your vendors," said David H.
Sternblitz, a vice president and the treasurer at Zale
Corporation. "Make sure you know who you're dealing with."
Mining and jewelry companies are also realizing that internal
codes of conduct or environmental rules are meaningless without
independent verification and inspection. Insurance companies
and socially conscious investment funds are also beginning to
demand standards of conduct that can be assessed by outsiders.
"They want be able to credibly say, 'I am not with stupid,' "
said Michael Rae, the president of the Council for Responsible
Jewellery Practices, a group formed last year by retailers and
mining companies. "To avoid being judged by the lowest common
denominator of the industry, they need a means by which they
can differentiate their practices."
Alternative voices in a deeply conservative industry are also
starting to speak up.
Jennifer Horning, an artist and metal worker in San Francisco,
is among the founders of a group called Ethical Metalsmiths. In
May her group will present a show designed to foster awareness
about responsible mining at the annual meeting of the Society
of North American Goldsmiths in Chicago. One artist will
exhibit a gold charm bracelet hung with tiny handcuffs, guns
and coffins; another made a stark metal syringe with gold in
the chamber ready for injection.
Companies like greenKarat.com, a Web-based business in Texas,
and Seraglia couture in London are also proselytizing the
virtues of so- called ethical jewelry.
"Initially it's a harder sell," said Lucy Wills, who founded
Seraglia last year to use recycled gold. But Ms. Wills said
she takes heart from the sharp growth in consciousness about
food and the social and environmental conditions of its
production.
"We won the battle with food; we're kind of getting there with
clothing," she said. "I think maybe in a few years time people
will be thinking more about jewelry too."
Andrew and Johanna Heyduk are already there. The Heyduks, who
live in New York City, shopped for responsibly mined gold last
year for their wedding bands. They ended up not buying gold at
all. When they took their vows in Vermont in October, it was
with platinum rings from greenKarat.
But even if responsible, ethical mining is possible, verifying
it will be difficult even with the best of intentions, industry
experts say. Diamonds, furs and timber all look simple by
comparison, because they all come in a discrete form that can
be tracked by a paper trail. A specific tree produces a
specific two-by-four; a diamond comes from one mine that can be
found on a map.
Gold is not like that. It must be purified and smelted,
amalgamated and combined into forms that jewelry makers can
then use. That means many more steps on the journey from mine
to display case, and no easy trail to follow.
Mr. Rae's appointment to the Council for Responsible Jewellery
Practices in February is seen as a sign of change; he was
formerly with the World Wildlife Fund in Australia, working the
other side of the issue as an environmentalist. He says
certified gold will require an entirely different strategy.
"Instead of a chain of custody, we have gone instead to a
chain of confidence," Mr. Rae said. He said that by 2008 the
council hopes to have a set of processes and standards with
independent third-party verification at every step of the
jewelry creation and selling process. Groups like Earthworks
and Oxfam are working on a similar time frame to establish a
certification process for mining operations.
How much of the ferment is real? Environmentalists and
industry insiders are divided: some hopeful, others braced for
system that burnishes gold's image without changing anything on
the ground.
"It will be proven over time," Ms. Horning at Ethical
Metalsmiths said. "But it's the beginning of a dialogue and
that is the most important thing to us."