Vancouver-based Crossworks Manufacturing Limited, the largest manufacturer of branded Canadian diamonds in the world, is set to become a carbon neutral company, within the framework of CIBJO’s Jewellery Industry Greenhouse Gas Measurement Initiative.

CIBJO’s Marketing & Education Commission set up the GHG Measurement Initiative in 2014, to help companies within the jewellery and gemstone industries understand their environmental impact, reduce it, and protect themselves and the industry as a whole. Companies that become part of the programme are invited to work with Carbon Expert, an environmental consulting organisation, which assists them in complying with ISO Standard 14064, specifying how to quantify and report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, and apply ISO Standard 20121, which offers guidance and best practice for controlling the environmental impact of events.

Crossworks, which was a founder member of the CIBJO GHG Measurement initiative, recognised the benefits of developing and maintaining sustainability programs. “As a business we realise the importance of understanding future consumer trends,” said Dylan Dix, Group Executive, Marketing & External Relations. “Our own consumer research has confirmed the millennia consumers are particularly concerned about climate change, and, as a progressive forward-looking company, we felt it was absolutely right for us to make every effort to do what we can to negate our environmental impact. Since starting the project, having a sustainability policy, and dealing with business, greenhouse gas emissions has become an intrinsic part of business management.”

In recent years CIBJO’s Marketing & Education Commission has taken the lead in educating the jewellery industry on climate change, and its impact on the environment, society and business. Encouraging companies to proactively reduce their carbon footprint and neutralise their environmental impact, it has urged them to join a worldwide trend by which global businesses and brands recognise that this is a critical way to enhance one´s reputation.

“Today there are a significant number of organisations working with CIBJO on achieving carbon neutrality,” said Jonathan Kendall, President of CIBJO´s Marketing and Education Commission. “Over the coming months and years, it is clear there will be an increased focus on the environment, as both the USA and China ratified the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions in the past week. This is the right time for retailers, brands and their suppliers to adopt a proactive approach.”

As an organisation, CIBJO first measured and offset its carbon emissions for 2013, serving as a role model for the industry. The 2015 CIBJO Congress in Salvador, Brazil, was the first major jewellery industry event ever to be fully carbon neutral, and the upcoming 2016 CIBJO Congress in Yerevan, Armenia, scheduled to take place October 26-28, will be carbon neutral as well.