Ethical Jewelry? Are You Guys Serious?
A blogger on the website, ‘www.all-jewelry.net’ picked up my press report on the Ethical Jewelry Handbook, expressing incredulity.
“I mean I truly see nothing wrong with people spending thousands of dollars on jewelries, but I’d really feel embarrassed to hear them saying that they had actually spent those thousands in a socially responsible way. I couldn’t help but think that, they were rather responsible towards their own consciences. I am ready to take the blame, but I feel it’s somewhat similar to the phenomenon of huge oil companies, like British Petrol or Shell becoming front-line fighters of the environmental movement.”
When I read this post, I immediately wrote a response trying to give some of the thinking which led me to the FRE system. But over the subsequent few days, I couldn’t stop thinking what that my efforts were being compared to ‘British Petroleum’ or ‘Shell’ becoming front-line fighters of the environmental movement. It is ludicrous and personally shocking. Apart from my core values, which I best in this post, https://fairjewelry.org/archives/28, I’m the co-owner of a company of ten people that is barely scratching by in this economy. Even to call this blog and my work a ‘mouse that roared’, would be an insult to mice.
Well, let me just say this. There is a whole maverick world out there of small producers who are not beholden to anyone but their own personal ethics. And together, with the 100 million artisanal miners, we count for something. So the analogy to big oil really isn’t accurate.
All I’m trying to do is to get people to realize that we have to change the way we do business because humanity’s future is in the balance. I write because I wish to encourage action in alignment with what I know to be true: that we are all deeply connected in a greater web of life. We created this mess and we need each other to solve it. I get angry at times when I see things I don’t agree with, but I also know that all voices in this circle must be listened to and respected.
Given that this person is sympathetic to the jewelry sector and writes about issues on his post, I might draw some tentative conclusions, and some greater observations.
There is also tremendous cynicism around corporations in general and the jewelry sector gets lumped into that category. And rightly so. Except for the efforts of ‘fair trade’ jewelry made in small, third and second world villages, an effort which the mainstream sector has ‘ghetto-ized’, jewelry is treated strictly as a commodity.
Many of the people who have no respect for the jewelry sector, I view as some of my target customers in a Blue Ocean Strategy. I know many people who would never, ever walk into a jewelry store. We’re going to have to work hard to convince the progressive community that our efforts toward ethical sourcing are real and worthwhile.
The most authentic way to do this is to make sure that our efforts are focused on the plight of small scale miners rather than large corporate interests that are solely motivated by the bottom line.
I certainly do not wish to see fair trade becoming simply another avenue for large scale interests, blessed by TransfairUSA, to polish their image, analogous to the green washing efforts BP and Shell…
Here’s the original post:
http://all-jewelry.net/ethical-jewelry-are-you-guys-serious
