Radical Transparency and Green, Ethical Sources in the Jewelry Industry Part I: Where We Need More Honesty
Every day I read press releases and articles on jewelry companies that are branding themselves as green or fair trade. It is not uncommon for large companies to spend huge amounts of money to hire a movie star or athlete to carry this eco or socially responsible message. Just look at Citizen Watch and the De Beers sponsored diamond mine tour by Russell Simmons.
Without any type of second party verification, a company with dozens of components making up a piece of jewelry can claim one element as socially responsible, distracting the public from what may be happening in their Chinese factories. These two companies may indeed be exemplary in their social and ecological practices, or they may be scammers, trying to “fair wash” and “green wash” like so many other companies in corporate America.
In fact, when I hear these types of campaigns I feel like a blind man touching an elephant. Instead of the latest good deed, I want the vast untold story behind the press release. What is happening in the factories in China? What are the labor practices in their US work places? We cannot tell from their marketing campaigns which show only the light, but not shadow.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Russell Simmons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Simmons#Other_Projects
In December 2006, Simmons was criticized for claims that he made following a tour organized by De Beers, of Botswana’s Jwaneng mine, one of the world’s richest diamond mines. This was part of a nine day, three country trip through Africa. Some expressed concern that this was part of a larger public relations effort organized by De Beers to counter expected controversies following the release of the movie Blood Diamond. Simmons’ response was that he felt too much focus has been put on ” conflict diamonds” and that his job was “to take what’s good and make it better”.
Are Simmons and Citizen acting as Darth Vader, or Luke Skywalker? Do they serve the empire turning earth into a Death Star or the small federation of those of us truly sincere in our efforts to make positive change, the moral minority? The true motives and ethics are a matter of opinion, but what I am certain of is that that we are entering a new paradigm where such actions are open to being questioned outside of the mainstream press, in the online world of blogs and social media, where the rubber meets the road.
It is no longer so easy to hide behind Public Relations. In the internet world where reputation is built by Google, authenticity will be determined by Radical Transparency.
The concept of Radical Transparency is borrowed from the title of an article by Clive Thompson in Wired Magazine. The See-Through CEO
Here are some relevant quotes from the article:
“Power comes not from your Rolodex but how many bloggers link to you—and everyone trembles before search engine rankings…”
“Secrecy is dying. It’s probably already dead. In a world where Eli Lilly’s internal drug-development memos, Paris Hilton’s phonecam images, Enron’s emails, and even the governor of California’s private conversations can be instantly forwarded across the planet, trying to hide something illicit—trying to hide anything, really—is a gamble. So many blog rely on scoops to drive their traffic that muckraking has become a sort of mass global hobby.”
“Today’s public has been serially disenchanted by years of corporate scandal and on-the cheap customer service so inhuman it couldn’t pass the Turing test.”
I believe that radical transparency is going to become the model for all of us who are passionate about fair jewelry. The net effect and power of this emerging movement has been noted in the tech and consumer market, but it has hardly hit the jewelry industry where Wikipedia and Google are just a click away.
My next entry will discuss how it can be applied as a positive agent between the public and jewelers to build this movement. I will also be giving examples of companies that are practice Radical Transparency.
