Are you being mislead by claims of 70 or 80% recycled metal in jewellery?
Do not be reassured when a jeweller tells you that gold they use is 70% or 80% recycled. This sounds good but there’s more to it.
A certain amount of the gold used in jewellery has always been recycled, nobody has ever thrown away gold, not because they care about the environment, workers rights and the circular economy but because it’s worth something.
In past this wouldn’t have been mentioned, its something that’s always been. It’s only now that people care more about the impact and the source of the materials that it’s being communicated and although it sounds good, literally nothing has changed.
Why is change in the jewellery industry important?
It has been recognised for many years that the gold supply chain throws up significant issues to do with workers right, exploitation, funding conflict and environmental damage and in the last 10 or so years efforts have been made to address this.
If a jeweller communicates that they are using 80% recycled gold, then they want you to think that they are part of that change and you are spending money with a company who are addressing these issues. Sadly this isn’t the case.
80% sounds good, but when you consider that that other 20% is potentially responsible for huge environmental damage and people being exploited then it doesn’t look so good and really only services to highlight what a destructive process gold mining can be. Add that on to the fact that whoever communicating this, is hoping that you will be reassured and convinced that they will be making an ethical conscious choice when this isn’t the case puts an unpleasant twist on the whole thing. This is rewording, not systematic change.
If there were no other options, if the 80% recycled model was the best there is might be understandable, however, there exist two labels that exist for gold which are independently audited and do much to address all of the issues. Signing up to these initiatives takes a little time and effort, certainly more than a few words on a website
Who’s greenwashing and how can you tell?