Andrew Owen's List: Green Jewelry

• But doing good isn't just good for the bottom line. Business owners are discovering rewards like deeper bonds with customers, employees, goodwill in the community, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing.

• “In a marketplace increasingly worried about blood diamonds -- called  that because, amid reports of slave labour and torture, they have helped  finance horrific civil wars in countries such as Angola, Democratic Republic  of the Congo and Sierra Leone -- Canadian gems have the additional cachet  of being conflict-free. Producers here are initiating the concept of branded  gems -- stones with a miniscule symbol like the maple leaf implanted on an  edge -- and are charging a premium for them.” (Katherine Macklem,  Maclean’s,  September 8, 2003)

• What are some of the problems with Canadian diamonds?

   
   
  1. The mines are often built in environmentally fragile ecosystems, have significant  ecological footprints, and will significantly impact upon the caribou, wolverine, bears, ptarmigan and fish which provide food for Aboriginal peoples.
   
  2. Exploration  and mining distort and disrupt the cultural and social lives of Aboriginal  peoples and the regional economy and very few of the financial benefits from  the mines return to the people who suffer most of the impacts.
   
  3. The federal,  provincial and territorial regulatory frameworks in Canada are inadequate  to protect the environment from long term and cumulative environmental effects
• 1. The ecological footprint of the diamond mines:
• 2. Exploration and mining distort the cultural and social lives of indigenous  communities, and a small portion of the financial benefits return to the  affected peoples
• 3. Federal, provincial and territorial regulatory frameworks  in Canada are inadequate to protect the environment from long term environmental  effects

3 more annotations...

• Canada's Barrick Gold (ABX), the world's largest gold-mining company, has refused to directly join with the retailers or environmentalists to set standards, preferring to be represented by its industry group. The state-owned China National Gold Group, now a major producer, has likewise declined to participate.
• Kowalski has been digging into Tiffany's supply chain since the late 1990s, after human rights groups accused the jewelry industry of trafficking in so-called conflict diamonds, also known as "blood diamonds" because they were traded by rebel groups in Africa to finance brutal civil wars.

• Could look at fur trade as possible predecessor and Nike's sweat shop labor exposure. - Andrew Owen on 2008-09-23