Is The Moon Made Of Cheese?
By Greg Valerio, Staff Writer
I recently decided to resign my directorship of CRED Jewellery, the fair trade jewellery company that I founded in 1996. It was a big decision, discussed many times over the past year by our entire CRED team. I am very proud of what we achieved. For me, the clear social objective was always to prove that fair trade high-end jewellery was possible. In April 2009 this social objective was achieved when the Chichester boutique finally converted all its gold, diamonds and coloured gem stones to traceable sources—a first for the UK high street.
This traceability challenge became apparent very early on in the journey. It became the defining issue for me. If I could not look my customer in the eye and tell them where the gold came from, or where the diamond had been mined, how could I with any integrity claim to be ‘ethical’?
It is a very difficult task to define ethical as it is always interpreted as a very subjective reality. The moral consensus around the foundations of ethics is the principle of reciprocity, the idea that you should do to others what you would like done to yourself.
In the jewellery trade, this extremely difficult challenge involves fully understanding the network of relationships that you or your business is linked to, and the balance of power that may exist within those relationships.
The blood diamond story that broke in the late 90’s perfectly demonstrates this reality. Most jewellers were on a moral level horrified at what was happening, yet struggled to make the connection between their family run business and the killing fields of Sierra Leone or Angola. But the uncomfortable truth was that we were linked through our economic relationships.
Fast forward a few years and the principles of ‘ethical reciprocity’ are more relevant than ever. In September, I attended, with some friends from The Fairtrade Foundation, the Great Debate at Earls Court hosted by The Birmingham Assay Office. In my hand I held a gold ring that had a fairtrade ‘makers mark’ stamped inside. The gold in that ring had come from Oro Verde, a pioneering gold mining community in Colombia that has been foundational to the creation of the emerging fairtrade gold certification system. It was a physical example of a fully traceable supply chain that demonstrates we do not have to live with the darkness and secrecy of where our materials come from anymore.
A further illustration of the flip side came in the summer when I received a call from CBS news’s flagship investigative documentary 60 Minutes. They were making a film on the gold supply chain. They were struggling to track the gold that was coming into the USA. They got as far as the middle-east and then the trail went cold. Their researchers had come to the conclusion themselves that without physical traceability you cannot make any ethical claims at all.
Ethical reciprocity is a truly complicated challenge to us. When you think about it, how does a stock market listed large-scale mining (LSM) company wish to be treated? If the mining company cannot address the issue of ethical reciprocity, it cannot engage in any meaningful dialogue around how it should treat others. This is not to say that every LSM gold or diamond mining company is bad or unethical. Rather, the gap in experience, purpose, identity and expectation from the communities that may be impacted by their activities is a vast and a difficult issue that is often not address in the commodization of people and the natural world where they live.
This ethical chasm in expectation is often filled with charitable activity. A good friend who is a dentist lives in northern Tanzania. He fulfills a number of contracts with the mining companies in the local community. For him it is very rewarding work, yet he has often commented about what will happen when the mine runs dry and the company leaves. The communities around the mine will now have the burden of a huge hole in the ground with environmental consequences. Because of this, more often than not, the local community will end up worse off than when the mine first arrived.
Another way the industry deals with this ethical gap is to say that physical traceability is either not possible or impractical. This is a smoke screen, falsely created to abrogate the supply chain responsibility and integrity. Indeed, at the Great Debate, a comment from the floor was that ‘it is impossible to achieve’.
The reason why we know the moon is not made of cheese is that we have traveled there and brought back proof that the beautiful face that smiles on us every night is in fact made of rock. To say it is not possible to offer traceability to jewellers is a dis-proven theory like the flat earth theory, or the pseudo science of creationism. However, the impracticalities of refashioning and structuring a supply chain along traceable lines cannot be underestimated. I am under no illusions as to the difficulties, yet taking up the challenge is essential. We owe it ourselves and future generations.
My resignation from CRED Jewellery was motivated by this reality. CRED may have proved concept, but now the real challenge is to move the campaign up a gear. The jewellery industry in Britain can lead the way internationally. We have the most mature ethical debate taking place in this country and also the strongest fledgling intentional ethical and fair trade jewellery sector.
Greg Valerio is a fair trade jeweller and activist.
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