What are Ethical Options
Harriet Kelsall's story behind her ethical missions and choices for the jewellery they make at Harriet Kelsall Bespoke Jewellery.
We believe that nobody should suffer in the supply chain of your jewellery. We want your jewellery to be beautiful in all respects.
25 years ago as a young designer I was laughed at for asking about the provenance of a gemstone I wanted to buy – a gemstone dealer said “sorry luv you’re in the wrong industry for all that hippy stuff”. He tried to laugh me out of his shop because I asked for the finer details: how could I know if child labour had been used in any particular gemstone mine.
He couldn’t answer, nor could many others. So I made it my mission to find out- and haven’t stopped on my ethical jewellery revolution.
We’re proud that we’ve helped to change attitudes and played a significant part in improving this– we were 1 of 20 jewellers worldwide to establish Fairtrade Gold and were the first jewellers in the world to be both Fairtrade Licenced and Responsible Jewellery Council certified.
Nowadays, a lot of jewellers talk very loudly about their ethical sourcing but when I look behind the words, I’m not so sure. Even we do not promote ourselves as an “ethical jeweller” as sadly I don’t think it is possible to make such a huge claim ( just yet!). I don’t think any jeweller can state that their ethical trail is perfect and fully audited, because such audits do not exist for every aspect of what we do…yet.
But, we DO do our absolute best. We do what we can in regard to provenance of gemstones and our gold options, and we continually improve. When WE take an ethical step forward, we are plugged into the ethical veins of this industry too and try to influence good practice everywhere else.
I’m proud to say that, when it comes to responsible sourcing and industry improvement, our approach within the jewellery community is leading the way.