With two months to go to the opening of the 2015 CIBJO Congress in Salvador, Brazil, on May 4, 2015, the first of the CIBJO commissions’ Special Reports has been released. Prepared by the CIBJO Marketing & Education Commission, headed by Jonathan Kendall, the report urges the jewellery and gemstone industries not to fall behind other business sectors in adopting positive environmental policies.

The upcoming CIBJO Congress in Brazil will be carbon neutral, Mr Kendall noted, likely making it the first-ever major jewellery industry conference or trade show to achieve this status. He also announced the launch in Brazil of the “CIBJO Climate Leadership Awards,” which will focus on recognising those jewellery and gemstone trade organisations, companies or individuals that show real leadership in response to climate change.

“Research has shown that consumers make choices between product categories, and today the jewellery industry’s competition comes from products such as smart phones, computers, and holidays. All these industries have made significant progress with regards to the environment. We do not wish to see our industry left behind, and on the wrong side of history,” Mr Kendall writes.

To download a full copy of the report, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

MILAN, ITALY: JANUARY 28, 2015 – Registration has officially opened for the 2015 annual congress of CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, which will take place in Salvador, Brazil, May 4-6, 2015, with pre-congress meetings on May 2 and May 3. Salvador is the capital of the north-eastern Brazilian state of Bahia.

Congress participants can register by way of the dedicated CIBJO Congress website, located at http://congress2015.cibjo.org/, which was launched yesterday. The website includes extensive background about the` congress, including the preliminary agenda, information about the host city and organisations, travel information, galleries, a section for the press and more.

In addition to congress registration forms, participants can book hotel room online and pre-register for a series of tours taking place in and around Salvador from May 2 through May 5, and for a post-congress mine tour in Bahia, which will take place May 7-10.

The congress is being hosted by Instituto Brasileiro de Gemas e Metais Preciosos (IBGM), working in close cooperation with the local jewellery association in Bahia, Progemas (Associação Bahiana dos Produtores e Comerciantes de Gemas e Metais Preciosos).

The main congress venue and hotel will be the Sheraton da Bahia Hotel, Salvador, located in a prime downtown location nearby the historic city centre of Pelourinho, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is renowned for its Portuguese colonial architecture, with historical monuments dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries.

Serving as the official venue for the meeting of the CIBJO Assembly of Delegates, the CIBJO Congress will gather the members of national jewellery and gemstone associations from more than 40 countries and representatives of many of the industry’s most important commercial bodies. The congress also serves as a forum for CIBJO’s professional commissions, and is the venue at which its Diamond, Coloured Stones, Pearl, Precious Metals, Gemmological and Coral Blue Books are discussed and updated.

 It is the first time that a CIBJO Congress is taking place in Latin America.

CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, and Fiera di Vicenza, have announced that they will launch the jewellery industry’s first web-based Corporate Social Responsibility compliance system at the VICENZAORO January show in Vicenza Italy. The system was developed by Branded Trust Assurance Systems.

The launch will take place will take place at 2:00 PM on Sunday, January 25, in Pavilion 7.1, Room 7.1.2b, at Fiera di Vicenza, and will be followed by a seminar entitled  “Social Responsibility as the New Reality: Best Practice Initiatives, Tools and Business Success.”

The CIBJO-Fiera di Vicenza CSR system, powered by Branded Trust,  is geared to provided practical and economic solutions to all companies in the industry seeking to achieve and manage social compliance, develop risk management policies and do social reporting.

Managed online, the Branded Trust system provide simple, effective tools that are easily managed, integrate with existing systems and bring leading businesses into compliance with the major international rule structures. Its tools include a web-based management system that can be implemented across an organisation.  The system includes a set of policies, measures, full implementation support, education and reporting. Branded Trust provides a certification to businesses that have achieved successful implementation.

Its second tool is an ethical market system, which allows certified business to participate in the ethical market.  Participating in ethical markets not only provides supply-chain transparency and product differentiation but reduces business risks associated with markets.

Branded Trust, which was presented last year at the United Nations in New York,  is the outcome of an extended research partnership among a team of researchers, business leaders and industry associations, which led to the development of effective methods for improving business performance by combining outstanding management practice with social responsibility principles.

Photo Caption:  The jewellery industry’s first web-based Corporate Social Responsibility compliance system will to introduced at the VICENZAORO January show in Vicenza, Italy.