Three of the seminars made up the crowning glory of the seminar programme; The Great Debate. Sadly, we were only able to attend the final seminar in the series; Ethical Jewellery – from ideal to reality, which brought together David Hargreaves from Fairtrade Gemstones, Jonathan Lambert from Ethically Precious and Ute Decker from Ute Decker Sculptural Jewellery. Whilst the debate started slowly the topics soon being covered included; sourcing issues, traceability, whether ethical jewellery can be a viable business plan and the best way to convey ethical intentions.
Throughout the debate David Hargreaves, who has worked with mining companies for years stressed that mining is now integral to modern society and will not end. We should, therefore, be moving towards mining with care. His company, Fairtrade Gemstones has 100% traceability from source mines to retail and is able to offer for sale most stones. David Hargreaves also believes that the City view ethics in a purely financial way and that if ethical jewellery is to become a viable business it will be necessary for ethical brands to offer their products at an equal price point to non-ethical brands.
Jonathan Lambert spoke about changing consumer opinion by bringing ethical jewellery to the high street which he is doing with his Chaos collection. He also believes that you must have confidence in your products to be able to help spread the word about ethics.
Ute Decker responded to questions regarding how to get the ethical message across. Ute Decker feels that conversation is the way forward. She always wears pieces of her sculptural jewellery and uses them to spark interest and conversation, without which, non-ethically conscious people will not become aware of the issues.
Overall, The Great Debate and IJL are valuable tools for ensuring ethics becomes more widespread within the trade but there are still problems. Certification and standardization is required throughout the ethical supply chain. One of the companies which should be at the front of this is the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) who chaired The Great Debate. After questions regarding their intentions, the RJC were forced to admit that, despite having 250 members, and aiming to make their mandate industry-wide, they are yet to audit any of their members and this may take up to 2 years to complete. Still a long way to go!
Other seminars attended by Opulent Ethics included The Impact of Green Issues On-line. This was given by Michelle Tuck the Creative Director of Avasarah an ethical jewellery company and e-tailer. Whilst most of this seminar covered well trodden ground she did bring one new issue to our attention. Whilst speaking about how social media is the new way to call for change she also explained that by using these sites we open our brands up to being owned as much by our consumers as by ourselves due to freedom of speech. This is definitely something we at Opulent Ethics will be thinking about in the future.
Finally we attended Ute Decker’s Ethical Jewellery – how business and designers can become more ethical in their trading and production. Of all the seminars we attended this was by far the most useful and most well attended. Ute Decker spoke openly and frankly about the pitfalls of making ethical jewellery and her reasons for choosing to do so. The practical information she supplied was as relevant and helpful to those who are starting out or trying to become more ethical as it was to those who are already working ethically. Topics covered included suppliers of materials, office supplies, hosting sites and energy suppliers. For all this information and more visit the ethical jewellery resources section of Ute Decker's website. She also spoke at length about Fair Trade gold and its future developments but we will talk about this in another post though as we think this is enough for our first outing!
Bye for now....
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