Ethical Jewellery
When we started the purple-label.com project we decided to put the well-being of people and our environment right at the centre of things, not because we thought it would sell more jewellery or increase our profits but because we genuinely think it is important. In fact ethics and the environment has always been at the top of Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design's mind even before it became trendy.
Jewellery has an intrinsically magical and mysterious quality in the public's mind, but we don't feel that this need extend to an ignorance about the damage caused to people and the environment with its manufacture.
So here's what we are doing to help...
Jewellery and People
We are active members of the Responsible Jewellery Council together with a few other international companies who, like us, are committed to promoting responsible business practices in a transparent and accountable manner throughout the jewellery industry from mine to retail. There has been (and still is) so much irresponsible behaviour in the jewellery industry, and through this body we hope to make a difference.
The issue of so called "conflict diamonds" has been in the press recently, these are diamonds that are mined in areas controlled by rebel forces who use the proceeds to fund wars. We are members of the British Jewellers' Association and the National Association of Goldsmiths and together with these two bodies work very hard to be able to guarantee that diamonds that we use are conflict free. See our conflict diamond page for more information.
We are one of the very few remaining companies that makes it's jewellery in the UK and does not take advantage of cheap overseas manufacturers. We handmake it all ourselves in our Hertfordshire and Cambridge workshops - so it's 100% made in Britain! Unlike virtually everyone else, we aren't tempted by the increased profit margins achievable by exploiting people on a very low wage overseas. British labour is relatively expensive but we think our customers would rather know that their beautifully jewellery didn't cost any tears overseas.
We also do our best to ensure that we use gem suppliers who mine and polish gemstones ethically. Harriet has visited some of our supplier's sapphire mines personally to ensure that she likes the way that people and the environment are treated.
Jewellery and the Environment
Our decision to make all of our jewellery in-house also means that we avoid having to air-transport finished jewellery and prototypes backwards and forwards - and as we all know, air freight is very environmentally damaging.
We get through loads of paper, so we use 100% recycled paper for all of our labels, receipt cards, gift cards and price labels.
We use e-mail wherever possible so that we avoid wasting paper, ink, energy and time, and or course we recycle everything we can from our offices, workshops and shops.
All our fantastic purple label designs are drawn on the waste paper that we recycle on our office, so we're recycling recycled paper! We reuse the cardboard from cardboard boxes to secure our prototypes and we put all our materials into recycled plastic envelopes. There are no complex paper trails created through our processes, no photocopying or endless correspondence; just one seamless journey from design to final product which is passed through each stage by hand, designed, made and checked by hand; simple, effective and environmentally sound.
Okay - mining and refining precious metal uses quite a bit of energy - but we do our best by re-refining all of our precious metal scrap and filings so that nothing is wasted, but turned into more beautiful jewellery. Also the very fact that we handmake all of our jewellery means that we cause less damage to the environment than machine manufacturers.
We have thought through how we can minimise damage in the transportation of our jewellery between our premises and the customer. We almost always transport our jewellery between locations securely but energy efficiently by sharing vehicles already travelling to the towns anyway for other reasons. We securely walk our jewellery to the post office each day rather than driving - this may not seem much, but over the course of a year this makes a huge difference which we think is worth it.
Our jewellery may be fantastically fashionable but we pride ourselves in our quality and we do our best to design jewellery that you will love and just want to wear and wear - and which will last well into the future rather than putting all of our and your energy into something that will just find its way into a landfill site in a few months time.
We aren't perfect but we do our very best.
Visit our sister site hkjewellery.co.uk's ethical jewellery section for a full explanation about what we are doing in this important area.
