Free E-Books Available to the Public and Jewelry Trade
Fair Trade Jewelry Now! A Consumer’s Guide, provides the jewelry collector critical inside information they need in order to purchase environmentally and socially responsible jewelry.
This book can be downloaded from our website, www.artisanweddingrings.com off the link located on the upper left side of the page.
The Ethical Jewelry Handbook: a Resource Guide for Jewelers Wishing to Adopt Exceptional Standards, offers jewelry manufacturers and retailers background information, resource contacts and examples of best practices.
To receive this book, please email: [email protected] with your name and the name of your company or organization.
Both books, available as free downloads, explore a wide range of topic related to responsibly sourced jewelry—such as artisan mining, the specious notion of “conflict free diamonds,” dirty gold, politics of fair trade, and the pervasiveness of marketing spin as companies attempt to position themselves as “green” and “responsible” without changing their supply chain.
The books are written by Marc Choyt, publisher of Fairjewelry.org (this very blog). His approach to these issues derives from his own experience in the jewelry sector as President of Reflective Images.
Founded in 1994 and located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Reflective Images was among the first in the jewelry sector to move their entire American and fair trade international production to 100% recycled precious metal. It also pioneered transparency through its own Fair, Responsible, Ecological (F.R.E.) model, which reveals to customers exactly how a piece of jewelry is sourced and made. The company purchases green energy and offsets the carbon footprint from its operations.
The company has won several awards. The city of Santa Fe honored the company in 2006 and 2008 as one small businesses in the city for contribution to the community and visionary work in the jewelry sector. Reflective Images was also named a “Superior Supplier” by OC Tanner Corporation in 2004, 2005, and 2008—just one of three companies out of 300 to receive this honor.
