Crafting the Radically Transparent FRE Jewelry Sourcing System
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We at Reflective Images are deeply concerned about the ethical imprint of our product. We have sought to implement a wide range of environmentally responsible practices: (http://www.fguardians.org/library/paper.asp?nMode=1&nLibraryID=500) and have also looked for suppliers that share our core values. (http://jckonline.com/article/CA6421028.html)
We started to redesign our website with the notion of transparency linked to product in April, 2007, and we focused on three principle attributes which we called Fair, Responsible, and Ecological (FRE).
1. Fair: Includes labor that goes into the making of the piece. Labor includes all elements from the mine to the manufacturing.
2. Responsible: Concerns outreach to community, support of diversity and being a good example of a corporate citizen.
3. Ecological: The environmental impact of the various components of the piece of jewelry, from mine to manufacturing to the jewelry office and showroom.
Categorizing according to FRE makes our strong and weak sourcing links public to all. The current system is our first pass at this. Even as we launch the site we are planning to dig deeper and improve the level of transparency in the system.
Launching the redesign of our website with FRE at the end of October, we realize that we have just started the process of becoming a totally “ethical” producer which will take many years. We’re following the Japanese notion of Kaizen, or continual improvement. Perhaps what we are doing is analogous to “transition” farms wanting to become organic, except the difference is that the seeds and soil are not yet available for the viable plants we wish to grow! We have to work piecemeal with what we have.
Still, we’re proud that our website is the first of its kind to illustrate transparent sourcing for a manufacturer targeting the middle range, $200 to $600 retail point. We are not a company that began creating product within the perimeters of a FRE ethical supply chain. We are an established company with a deep supply chain and relationships with vendors. We have to factor in our own economic interest in survival. Our desire for perfection is a kind of jewelry calculus.
Yet in order for the ethical source movement to have a large impact, it must reach the mainstream jewelry manufacturing sector, which is where we operate. Every company at some stage faces a great chasm between where they are now and where they wish to go to. As far as we know, we are among the first to provide a model for small manufacturing companies which are engaged in a process of transition to ethical suppliers, many of which do not yet exist to make our product.
We also offer our FRE program as an open source approach which we hope will be adopted by other companies. It also is adaptable enough to eventually allow us to rate all of our 3000 inventory pieces from which we produce about 8500 pieces of finished jewelry a year, the vast majority of which is manufactured in our Santa Fe, NM studio.
Contact us at info at celticjewelry.com, if you would like more information.
