Responsible Jewellery Production: Balancing Profit and Sustainability

There is a question I think the jewellery industry needs to discuss rather more honestly: how does a business remain commercially viable while taking responsible production seriously? After more than four decades in this trade, I have seen the industry become considerably more sophisticated about sourcing, disclosure, labour practices and environmental concerns. I have also seen how quickly a noble principle can become difficult when it reaches the purchase order, the manufacturing floor or the balance sheet. It is easy to agree that jewellery should be produced responsibly. It is much harder to decide how much a business can realistically invest, what it should prioritise and who ultimately pays for the improvement.

Responsible production is not a single activity. It can mean supply-chain due diligence, traceability of precious materials, responsible sourcing, worker welfare, health and safety, environmental management, energy efficiency, waste reduction and accurate product disclosure. The Responsible Jewellery Council's revised Code of Practices, effective from January 2025, reflects this broader understanding, with requirements covering areas including human rights, labour, health and safety, environmental practices, due diligence and product information. Its separate Laboratory Grown Materials Standard also came into effect in 2025.

All of that is worthwhile. But worthwhile does not mean cost-free.

This is where some sustainability conversations lose touch with commercial reality. A large jewellery group may have dedicated compliance teams, procurement specialists, sustainability managers and the budget to commission audits or implement sophisticated traceability systems. A small manufacturer or family-owned jewellery business may have an owner doing the purchasing, production oversight, sales and accounts, sometimes with only a handful of employees. Asking both businesses to achieve the same outcome through exactly the same process may sound principled, but it is not necessarily practical.

CIBJO has acknowledged this problem in its recent sustainability work, noting the enormous diversity of the jewellery industry's geography, product categories and business capacities. Its current resources include responsible-sourcing and ESG tools intended to help companies, including SMEs, assess their priorities and move from broad sustainability ambitions towards practical action.

I believe that distinction matters because responsible production should not become a contest in which the company with the largest compliance budget automatically appears the most responsible. Nor should smaller businesses be given an excuse to do nothing. The more sensible approach is materiality: understand where the greatest risks and impacts actually sit, and concentrate resources there.

For a jewellery business, that might begin with knowing its suppliers properly. It might mean asking where its gold comes from, how diamonds and gemstones enter the supply chain, what documentation accompanies them, how workers are treated and whether environmental claims can actually be supported. It may also mean looking much closer to home at manufacturing processes. Waste, energy consumption, inefficient production and poor inventory management are not only environmental issues; they can also be commercial inefficiencies. Sometimes the responsible decision and the economically sensible decision point in exactly the same direction.

But we should not oversell that argument. There will be occasions when doing the right thing costs more.

A manufacturer may choose a supplier that provides stronger evidence of responsible practices but charges a higher price. A business may invest in safer equipment without knowing when the expenditure will be recovered. A retailer may reject a product because its sustainability claims cannot be properly substantiated, even though a cheaper alternative is readily available. These are genuine commercial trade-offs, and pretending that responsibility always produces an immediate financial return does not help anyone.

The answer, therefore, cannot simply be to pass every additional cost on to the consumer. Luxury jewellery already operates in a market where customers consider design, craftsmanship, rarity, provenance, brand, emotional significance and price. Not every consumer will pay a substantial premium for every additional responsible-production attribute, however worthy that attribute may be. Businesses have to understand what their customers value, while ensuring that fundamental standards of honesty, safety and responsible conduct are not reduced to optional extras.

This is particularly important when responsibility becomes part of marketing. Singapore's Competition and Consumer Commission has advised businesses that environmental claims should be specific, accurate, transparent and supported by credible evidence, and cautioned against creating an impression of environmental benefit greater than the evidence supports. In other words, responsible production and responsible communication have to travel together.

I have always believed that trust is one of the most valuable assets in the jewellery business. A customer may not ask for a ten-page supply-chain report when buying a piece of jewellery, but the industry should nevertheless be able to stand behind what it says about the product. CIBJO's recent work on business integrity makes much the same point, placing responsible sourcing alongside consumer disclosure, product integrity, transparency and the avoidance of misleading sustainability claims.

There is, however, one part of this discussion that I think deserves more attention: commercial viability itself is a form of responsibility. A business that consistently operates at a loss cannot sustain employment, maintain skilled craftsmanship, support suppliers or invest in better production practices. If responsible production becomes so expensive or administratively burdensome that smaller businesses are pushed out of the market, we may unintentionally create another problem — greater concentration of production among businesses large enough to absorb the requirements.

So I would not frame the choice as profit versus responsibility. That is too simplistic. Nor would I suggest that businesses should pursue responsibility regardless of cost. The more realistic challenge is to identify what matters most, invest where the impact is meaningful, eliminate waste where better practice also improves efficiency, and be completely honest about the areas where progress involves a genuine cost.

I have learned that the jewellery business rarely rewards simplistic answers. Responsible production is no different. We need profitable businesses, because only sustainable businesses can keep improving. But we also need businesses prepared to recognise that some costs cannot simply be pushed down the supply chain or ignored because the customer may never see them.

The real test, in my view, is not whether a jewellery company can claim to be responsible. It is whether the way it buys, makes, sells and communicates its products can withstand a closer look. That is a much higher standard — and ultimately a much more useful one.

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