The third season of Jewellery Industry Voices, the widely followed webinar series presented monthly by CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, will kick off the same way that it did in 2020, with an in-person seminar in Vicenza, Italy, which will be live-streamed simultaneously as a webinar around the globe.

The two-hour, two-part seminar/webinar is a featured event during the second day of the VICENZAORO September jewellery show. It is entitled “Sustainable Development Goals: Meeting Their Challenge,” and is part of a joint programme of CIBJO and the Italian Exhibition Group, endorsed by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), to promote the principles of sustainability, responsible sourcing and social engagement in the jewellery and gemstone sectors. It is being co-presented by the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC).

The event will focus on industry strategies to support actualization of two of the 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are the set of global objectives designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.” They were approved in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030.

The first part of the seminar/webinar will focus on SDG 5: Gender Equality. It will look at the growing role of women in the mining and extraction of precious materials for the jewellery industry, and consider the significance of their increased involvement. Moderated by Edward Johnson, its panel members include Iris Van der Veken, Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council, which under her leadership launched the Generation Equality Campaign for the global jewellery and watch industry and has just released an in-depth gender equality report; Feriel Zerouki; Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs at the De Beers Group, who also is the General Manager of the GemFair artisanal miner empowerment programme in Sierra Leone; Cristina Maria Villegas, Director of Mining at Pact, a NGO operating in 40 countries, who is an expert in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM); and Diana Culillas, Secretary General of the Swiss Better Gold Association, which supports sustainable development of artisanal small-scale miners and establishes responsible gold value chains from these operations to the end market.