With thanks
CIBJO’S APPROACH TO CSR AND SUSTAINABILITY • CIBJO strongly supports measures that enhance the integrity of the gemstone and jewellery chain of supply, ensuring that the legitimate trade does not include products that are tainted by conflict, human rights violations, money laundering, terrorist financing, health and safety infractions, child labour and other work-related violations, and environmental mismanagement. • At the same time, CIBJO promotes measures that ensure that the industry acts as a progressive force for sustainable social, economic and environmental opportunity, for all of its participants and stakeholders, and especially for those residing in underdeveloped areas where raw materials are sourced and processing takes place. • However, CIBJO insists that no programmes designed to support CSR and sustainability in the jewellery and gemstone industry should become an artificial barrier of entry into the business, because of undue capital and human resources requirements. Operating in an acceptably responsible and sustainable must be a reasonable and achievable objective for all committed participants in the jewellery and gemstone industries, irrespective of size or turnover.
JEWELLERY’S HIGHER CALLING As members of humanity, we owe it our children and the future generations that we leave the world a better place. We are fortunate to work in a business that has, within itself, the ability to impact positively, and not only negatively, on the lives of people and communities in some of the world’s underprivileged areas.
CIBJO’S COMMITMENT TO THE UN DEVELOPMENT AGENDA CIBJO obtained special consultative status with the UN’s Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC) in 2006, committing itself and the jewellery industry to advancing the Millennium Development Goals. It recommitted to the Sustainable Development Goals, when the were declared by the UN in 2015.
17 GOALS & 169 SPECIFIC TARGETS
‘ENSURING EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND REDUCING INQUALITY OF OUTCOMES ’ IN COLOURED STONES • Educate. We must instruct members of the industry about the SDGs, their responsibilities, and alternatives they have for becoming involved. • Encourage the development of multiple sustainability programmes at the grass-roots level. This will provide companies the opportunities to select that are appropriate for them. • Report on what is being done. This will support the educational campaign, and transform the popular image of jewellery, as a luxury, non-essential product, into one that plays a vitally important role in positively transforming the lives and prospects.
‘ENSURING EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND REDUCING INQUALITY OF OUTCOMES ’ IN COLOURED STONES More than 80 percent of its raw supply from artisanal and small-scale miners. Unless we devise practical means of enabling artisanal miners in the coloured gemstone sector to legitimately access our chain of distribution, it will be impossible to meet our commitment to equal opportunity between and within nations.
DEFENDING THE INTEGRITY OF THE COLOURED STONE PIPELINE G O V E R N M E N T- V E R I F I E D A C C E S S ( L I K E W I T H T H E K I M B E R L E Y P R O C E S S , G O V E R N M E N T A P P R O V E S I N T E G R I T Y O F N E W LY M I N E D R O U G H G O O D S E N T E R I N G T H E P I P E L I N E ) D U E D I L I G E N C E A P P L I E D AT T H E C O M PA N Y L E V E L ( R O U G H T R A D E R ➜ L A P I D A R Y ➜ P O L I S H E D W H O L E S A L E R ➜ J E W E L L E R Y M A N U F A C T U R E R ➜ J E W E L L E R Y R E TA I L E R )
PROPOSAL To work towards creating a KP-type structure for rough coloured gemstones, which will enable the industry to demonstrate the integrity of its chain of distribution through a combination of government monitoring, and self-administered due diligence. if we as an industry take the lead, and work on an individual basis with governments that are eager to legitimize their artisanal coloured gemstone sectors, then we can grow organically the group of nations working within a KP-type structure.
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