Corporate Social Responsibility strategy in the gemstone and jewellery sectors came under focus at a well-attended seminar conducted during the VICENZAORO January trade show, in Vicenza, Italy, on January 24.

The seminar was part of CIBJO’s and Fiera di Vicenza’s joint programme to promote CSR education in the jewellery sector, and also was supported by Gemfields PLC, the world’s largest coloured gemstone mining company.

The basic premise of the seminar is that, in the current business environment, CSR no longer is practice that one chooses to follow or not. It has become a required component of every company and organization in the industry, which individually must be able to describe its approach, and if possible quantify it. There was a special focus on the coloured gemstone sector, with three of the speakers associated with that industry.

The panel of speakers at the seminar included:

• Dr Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO, who spoke of CSR as an essential business strategy in the jewellery sector.
• Corrado Facco, Managing Director of Fiera di Vicenza and President of CIBJO’s International Trade Fair Commission, who provided a concise introduction of Corporate Social Responsibility in the jewellery sector.
• Eduardo Escobedo, Executive Director of the Responsible Ecosystems Sourcing Platform (RESP), who discussed sustainability and responsible environmental strategies in the coloured gemstone sector.
• Ian Harebottle, CEO of GemFields PLC, who presented his company as a case study for implementing CSR principles in the coloured gemstone sector.
• Dr Donald Feaver, Chief Technical Officer of Branded Trust Assurance Systems, who outlined supply chain and CSR compliance strategies.
• Paolo Cesari, President of Assogemme, the Italian Association Precious Gemstones and Related Material, who described his organisation’s programme to create and introduce a supply chain compliance system for the Italian coloured gemstone sector.

The moderator of the seminar was Steven Benson, CIBJO’s Director of Communications.

“To present your company as a firm with a social conscience not presents it in a positive light, but also communicates to consumers that, when they buy jewellery, they are making a positive contribution to society,” said Mr. Facco, during his introduction. “In the modern business environment it is not enough to just behave correctly, you have to be seen to be behaving correctly.”

“Through Corporate Social Responsibility we can safeguard the long-term health of our industry”” Dr. Cavalieri said in his address. “By showing our commitment to our stakeholders, demonstrating that they too will be provided with fair and equitable opportunities to benefit from the jewellery enterprise, they will be incentivised to invest and reinvest in their future and that of the entire industry.

Download the presentations delivered at the CSR seminar:

• Dr Gaetano Cavalieri (CIBJO): CSR as an essential business strategy in the jewellery sector. [Download PRESENTATION][Download NOTES]

• Corrado Facco (Fiera di Vicenza): Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility in the jewellery sector. [Download PRESENTATION][Download NOTES]

• Eduardo Escobedo (RESP): Sustainability and responsible environmental strategies in the coloured gemstone sector. [Download PRESENTATION]

• Ian Harebottle (Gemfields): Gemfields as a case study for implementing CSR principles in the coloured gemstone sector. [Download PRESENTATION]

• Dr Donald Feaver (Branded Trust): Supply chain and CSR compliance strategies. [Download PRESENTATION]

• Paolo Cesari ( Assogemme): The programme to create and introduce a supply chain compliance system for the Italian coloured gemstone sector. [Download PRESENTATION] *In Italian

• Steven Benson (Moderator): Introduction to seminar and speakers [Download PRESENTATION][Download NOTES]

By Jonathan Kendall, President, CIBJO Marketing &  Education Commission, and Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO President

It is now six months since many of us met at the CIBJO Congress in Salvador, Brazil, and we have continued to build our climate change initiative, which is progressing as planned. We currently have more than 20 jewellery industry organisations and businesses working with us, and we ask that many more of you join us in the weeks ahead.

With the Inter-governmental Paris Conference on climate change less than three months away, over the past few weeks there has been a surge of media reporting around various environmental issues. Consequently, it feels like the right time to highlight a few of the highest profile statements that have been made, and to clarify and emphasise that our CIBJO initiative is positioning our industry in the right way (and at the right time) for possibly the most significant challenge that we will face in the future.

Two weeks ago Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, warned of the huge losses faced by any investor blindsided by climate change.  In a speech to the insurance industry he warned that any insurers who ignore the dangers posed by climate change would not be doing their job, and any central bankers unconcerned by the ramifications would be neglecting theirs. Carney’s statements highlighted and reinforced to all those in the finance industry the understanding that they can no longer ignore climate change, and it is time for action.

Then just several days later, Pope Francis pleaded with nations to act “now” on climate change before it becomes too late. In a speech to the UN General Assembly he stated that “any harm done to the environment is harm done to humanity.”  He went on to state that he is confident that the Paris conference will secure fundamental and effective agreements.

This year has been the first time that the Pope has supported the climate change agenda in such a clear and open way. He was followed by U.S. President Obama, French President Hollande and Chinese President Xi, all of whom made specific references for the need for action on climate change .
But it is not only governmental and religious leaders who have confirmed their belief in the need for real action. The business community is also advancing rapidly.

The trend in companies advertising their environmental credentials continues. For example, Unilever states in a recent TV ad its intention to focus actively on reducing the corporation’s environmental impact. Consumers are being bombarded with such messages each and every day, and it will not be long before it is the norm for customers to ask about a company’s environmental credentials before purchasing goods and services.

Jonathan Kendall (left), President of CIBJO’s Marketing & Education Commission, Gaetano Cavalieri (centre), President of CIBJO, and Moya McKeown, CIBJO in-house carbon consultant, displaying the certificates awarded to CIBJO for achieving carbon neutrality in 2013 and 2014. They were attending the 2015 CIBJO Congress in Salvador Brazil, which also was the first ever major jewellery industry event to be planned as carbon neutral. CIBJO’s programme is intended to serve as model for the international jewellery industry in general.

CIBJO set up the Jewellery Industry Measurement Initiative to help companies within the jewellery industry understand their environmental impact, reduce it, and protect themselves and the industry as a whole.  It is vitally important that the industry in general become engaged with this challenge before it impacts negatively on mid-term to long-term demand.

We are acting on a voluntary basis, showing innovation and leadership, to keep ahead of future governmental and consumer demands.

For CIBJO as an organisation, our understanding and commitment to climate change was demonstrated recently with the declaration of Carbon Neutrality for the 2015 congress in Brazil.  Indeed, the Sustainable Event Alliance, an ombudsman charged with keeping the industry honest, congratulated CIBJO on a rigorous greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory. We are doing the right things, and we now need more in the industry to follow.

There has been a good level of engagement since Brazil, but we request that all members of associations affiliated to CIBJO join us in this initiative, so we can achieve broader industry involvement. If we start now we can set our own pace before legislation demands action from us.  For further information or to discuss how this initiative can benefit your business or your members businesses, please contact our CIBJO specialist Moya McKeown, at moya.mckeown@carbon-expert.com.

Thank you to all those already on board, and to those who join in the coming weeks and months.

By Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO

It is a privilege to be with you in Harare today, and to be in the company of so representative a group of the Africa’s diamond mining leadership. Let me thank our hosts in Zimbabwe, and congratulate the organisers of this important conference.

These are historic days for the diamond industry. Whereas once the compass always pointed north to London, today it points south. Quite possibly it always should have pointed in that southerly direction, but now there is no question.

I would like to preface my remarks today by paying tribute to a diamond industry leader, whose contribution I believe was instrumental in us all gathering here in Harare. I speak, of course, about by good friend Eli Izhakoff.

Eli, I am sure you are aware, was the founding president of the World Diamond Council, which was established in 2000 at the height of the conflict diamond crisis, and he was instrumental in the creation of the coalition between government, industry and civil society that was the foundation of the Kimberley Process.

So central was the role that he played that few realized that the World Diamond Council was actually an observer in the KP and not a full member, which was a privilege available only to governments. This is because Eli was able to demonstrate that the diamond and jewellery industry was an objective intermediary, which was ready to understand and appreciate the concerns and requirements of all sides, and to seek common ground. There were times that the only principle that the opposing sides could agree upon was that Eli should be sitting at the table.

Eli leadership at the WDC made sure that the industry spoke with one voice. He was the glue that kept us together.

And so in July 2010 that it was at a meeting of the World Diamond Council in St. Petersburg, and not a Kimberley Process gathering, that agreement was eventually reached about exports from Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields. While the members of the WDC waited patiently below, Eli kept the sides talking in an upstairs room until a compromise was reached.

The rest as they say is history.

There are those to like to describe members of the business community as being unconcerned about anything other than profit and loss. Eli showed that this is not an accurate perception. Yes, we are always interested in the bottom line, but we understand that to achieve sustainable success, it is necessary to provide benefit to all stakeholders.

The World Diamond Council, in its original format, was acutely aware of the fact that, at its grassroots level, the diamond industry is the source of daily livelihood to literally millions of individuals and families, in the mining regions, as well as the cutting and trading centres. It is not just about big business and corporations, it is also about great many smaller businesses, and even more individuals and communities.

In recent months, there has been some concern that the WDC’s founding principal, which is that it represents all players in the industry, may have been superseded by the more narrow business interests of a handful of large companies in the developed markets.  I can assure you that CIBJO, together with other like-minded representative organisations, is doing all that it can to make sure that supporting the interests of the entire industry and its stakeholders remain at the forefront of our efforts.

For years, decisions at WDC, like at the KP, were taken on a consensus basis. But today, in its new format, WDC has instituted a majority-based voting system, which means that the opinion of well in excess of 90 percent of the industry – which is represented in WDC by representative organisations like CIBJO – can simply be disregarded. This was one of the key reasons for which we chose not to attend the recent WDC Annual Meeting in Antwerp.

Also staying away from the meeting – and I would like to thank them for their principled stand – were other representative organisations, including the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, the Belgian Federation of Diamond Bourses, the Israel Diamond Exchange, the Dubai Diamond Exchange, the Bharat Diamond Exchange in Mumbai, and the Israel Diamond Institute.

Unfortunately, it means that decisions taken in Antwerp, which will guide the WDC at the upcoming KP Plenary Meeting in China, will reflect the opinion of but a handful of companies in our industry, and not the majority of participants.

As Zimbabwe and the other African producing countries understand well, it the business of diamonds that able to translate demand for luxury products into economic opportunity in developing countries.

For us the industry, it took a while to fully appreciate the role we must play.

Initially we concerned ourselves with the creation of defensive systems like the Kimberley Process, all of which were designed to ensure that gems and jewellery do no harm. This principle was at the basis of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme that was introduced in 2003.

But around 2004 we began discussing within CIBJO an expanded vision of Corporate Social Responsibility, by which the jewellery industry would seek not only to NOT impact negatively on society and the environment, but also to serve as a positive economic and social force, especially in the countries in which we were active.

It was this new understanding which inspired us to initiate contact with the United Nations, eventually leading to CIBJO’s becoming the jewellery industry first and only member in the UN’s Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC, in 2006.

In 2007 the annual CIBJO congress took place in Cape Town, and it was the first time that such an industry event was held in Africa.

In the presence of the South African deputy president and ministers from governments throughout the region, our General Assembly ratified a statement that has since become known as the Cape Town Declaration.

It noted the role of the world jewellery industry in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility, and recognised “that the jewellery industry, as a member of the international business community, shares a responsibility toward the greater society in seeking practical solutions towards the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, as well as to developing a global partnership for development.”

In my opening speech at the congress in South Africa I made the following call: “When consumers buy jewellery, they should know that not only is it an expression of value, beauty and emotion, but they have contributed to making a better life for people who need it most dearly.”

When it comes to sustainable development, there is no one, single programme that our industry must undertake, but rather a variety of programmes. Involved should be major and junior mining houses, industry organisations, jewellery and gemstone companies and NGOs that are financially supported by our industry. The programmes should range from gem cutting and jewellery craftsmanship training courses in Africa, to tourism projects in areas where the mines are reaching the end of their productive lives, to programmes that support the health and wellbeing of our industry’s employees, especially through the prevention of HIV-AIDS.

We talk a lot about sustainability today, but what does it mean?  I suggest that there are three types of sustainability, all of which need to achieved.

These are:

•          economic sustainability

•          environmental sustainability

•          and stakeholder or community sustainability.

For the sake of accuracy, I cannot claim ownership over this analysis. The World Summit on Social Development in 2005 identified three basic sustainable development goals, which it defined as economic development, environmental protection and social development.

Let us take those three elements one by one.

Economic sustainability requires us to use our resources in an efficient and responsible way, so that our business will function profitably over the long-term.

Please note that the words “business” and “profit” feature prominently in that definition. Neither one is the natural enemy of the stakeholder. On the contrary, in order to be sustainable a business must be profitable.

The essential importance of economic sustainability must be appreciated by the business community, which needs to be prepared to take a long-term approach, sometimes at the expense of short-term profit. It also needs to be appreciated by government regulators, who must do their utmost to protect their country’s natural environment and social fabric, while at the same ensuring that the economy is allowed to function.

The second element, environmental sustainability, can be defined as enabling the ecosystems in our environment to continue operating, without being negatively affected by our business activities.

At our most recent congress in Moscow, we invited a carbon foot-printing expert to profile CIBJO as an organization, to ascertain how much of an impact we make upon the environment. In doing so, we hoped to act as a model for companies in the industry.

The third element, stakeholder or community sustainability, or what also has been referred to as social sustainability, connects to a great deal of the work that CIBJO has been involved in consultative status with the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council in 2006, and where we committed the international jewellery sector to helping fulfil the UN’s Millennium Development Goals which were declared in 2000, and more recently the UN’s Post 2015 Development Agenda.

What we committed to was the principle that, while jewellery is a non-essential item, in certain parts of the world the jewellery industry is an essential business sector, providing a livelihood and looking after the wellbeing of literally millions of ordinary people. Our obligation is to ensure that our activities provide them with sustainable economic opportunities that will help secure the future of generations to come.

In the gemstone and mineral sectors, stakeholder sustainability means investing in the communities so that its natural resources will continue to pay dividends long after the resources themselves are depleted.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are here today.

But please be sure: in saying I am not underestimating the beauty of a diamond or a magnificent piece of jewellery, but I am recognising the tremendous opportunity that our business offers a country like Zimbabwe.

They say a diamond is forever. So should be the positive economic and social benefits that diamonds are able to create.

By Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO President

On June 21, 2015, CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri addressed the Sustainable Pearl Forum in Hong Kong, laying out a comprehensive framework for sustainability in the cultured pearl sector. The following is the full text of his address.

It is a privilege to be with you in Hong Kong today, and to be provided the opportunity of delivering the opening speech of what I hope will be a groundbreaking event. Thanks and congratulations are due to the organizers for both their initiative and foresight, and  may I express my admiration for the fact that so many of the leading participants in the international pearl sector have expressed their appreciation of the importance of what is being discussed here today, and have agreed to part of it.

The subject of sustainability is not new to CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation. We have been addressing it from a variety of perspectives for more than eight years, and I plan to present several of these perspectives in my address today. But the cultured pearl industry provides an opportunity to broaden the discussion, and to introduce concepts that often cannot be considered in other sectors of the jewellery industry.

Why is this so?  Because as we often point out: mining, through which we as jewellers obtain the bulk of our raw materials, is inherently unsustainable. Once a gemstone or mineral has been removed from the earth, it will not return, at the very least for the next couple of billion years or so. We can talk about sustainable mining methods that protect the environment, and we can talk about sustainable economic opportunities created by mining, but when it comes to natural gems and minerals we cannot truthfully talk about a sustainable product.

But with pearls we can, because we possess the means and knowledge to initiate the natural growth of new products within an economically viable period of time. And please take note that I refer to “natural growth.” True, we are talking about cultured pearls, which need to be differentiated from natural pearls, but the biological processes by which a cultured peal is created are natural, as is the environment in which they take place. This is not the same as with synthetic gemstones, where neither the processes nor the environment are how nature intended.

So, while the term “sustainable mining” is actually an oxymoron, meaning two words with essentially opposite meanings – like “open secret” or “seriously funny” – “sustainable aquiculture” most definitely is not.

From a business perspective it offers the cultured pearl industry a tremendous opportunity, but along with that comes responsibility. It is on that responsibility that we largely are focusing upon today.

First we should define “sustainability.

Most probably the most widely used definition is the one that was provided by the United Nations-established World Commission on Environment and Development. It stated that “sustainability is to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Paul Hawken, who is both an environmentalist and a successful entrepreneur, defined it somewhat differently. He said sustainability is about stabilizing the currently disruptive relationship between earth’s two most complex systems—human culture and the living world.

For today’s discussion I would like to talk about three types of sustainability, all of which need to achieved if we, as a business community, can claim to be a truly sustainable industry.

These are:

• economic sustainability
• environmental sustainability
• and stakeholder or community sustainability.

For the sake of accuracy, I cannot claim ownership over this analysis. The World Summit on Social Development in 2005 identified three basic sustainable development goals, which it defined as economic development, environmental protection and social development.

It also is important to point out that none of the three are mutually exclusive. Indeed, the inability to address any one of those elements will make it difficult, if not impossible to address the other two, certainly over the long term and, as experience has shown, this is almost definitely true in the cultured pearl industry.

Dr. Gaetano Cavalieri (centre), flanked by participants in the Sustainable Pearl Forum in Hong Kong.

Let us take those three elements one by one.

Economic sustainability requires us to use our resources in an efficient and responsible way, so that our business will function profitably over the long-term.

Please note that the words “business” and “profit” feature prominently in that definition. Neither one is the natural enemy of the environment, nor the stakeholder community. On the contrary, in order that all operate in harmony it essentially that the business be profitable.

On the other hand if a business uses its resources in an irresponsible way, not only will its ability to profit over the long-term be threatened, it also is likely to pose an environmental threat and will not serve as a sustainable resource for the benefit of the stakeholder community.

The essential importance of economic sustainability must be appreciated by the business community, which needs be prepared to take a long-term approach, sometimes at the expense of short-term profit. It also needs to be appreciated by government regulators, who must do their utmost to protect their country’s natural environment and social fabric, while at the same ensuring that the economy is allowed to function.

I do not for moment suggest that regulations be relinquished, certainly not where fragile eco-systems are concerned. But to create the correct balance between a properly protected environment and a free market economy, the regulators need understand the business environment.

Let me now address environmental sustainability, which from our perspective I believe can be defined as enabling the ecosystems in our environment to continue operating, without being negatively affected by our business activities. In other words, environmental sustainability ideally does not require our intervention. Where we must intervene, however, is to offset any damage that our activities may have caused.

I spoke earlier about the pearl industry’s responsibility. When it comes to the environment this is a particularly critical, and it requires continuous scientific research and ongoing training and education. Simply stated, if the lessons that you have learned do not reach the grass-roots of your industry, your efforts may have been wasted. And the stakes are very high, not only for the eco-systems that need to co-exist with the pearl farms, but also for the pearl farms, which require a healthy aqua-environment in order to flourish over the long term.

Environmental responsibility should be a catchphrase of the cultured pearl industry. When a consumer buys an item of pearl jewellery, they should feel that they have invested in our planet’s long-term survival, rather than having taken advantage of it.

At our most recent congress in Moscow, we invited a carbon foot-printing expert to profile CIBJO as an organization, to ascertain how much of an impact we make upon the environment. In doing so, we hoped to act as a model for companies in the industry.

For those of you are familiar with the practice, the idea is to eventually offset your footprint with carbon credits, thereby being able to declare yourself as carbon neutral. A carbon credit is a financial instrument that represents a ton of carbon dioxide or equivalent gases that are removed or reduced from the atmosphere from an emission reduction project.

A suggestion was made in Moscow by Laurent Cartier that it may be possible to develop carbon credits in the pearl sector, as part of your regular activities, which could then be purchased by jewellery companies seeking to offset their carbon footprints. I would encourage you to investigate this possibility, for, were it possible, it would be a perfect example of the jewellery industry working in tandem in the interest of environmental sustainability.

Stakeholder or community sustainability, or what also has been referred to as social sustainability, connects to a great deal of the work that CIBJO has been involved in, since we obtained special consultative status with the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council in 2006, and where we committed the international jewellery sector to helping fulfil the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, which were declared in 2000, and more recently the UN’s Post 2015 Development Agenda.

What we committed to in 2006 was the principle that, while jewellery is a non-essential luxury item, in certain parts of the world the jewellery industry is an essential business sector, providing a livelihood and looking after the wellbeing of literally millions of ordinary people. Our obligation is to ensure that our activities provide them with sustainable economic opportunities that will help secure the future of generations to come.

In the gemstone and mineral sectors, stakeholder sustainability means investing in the communities so that its natural resources will continue to pay dividends long after the resources themselves are depleted. Community investment in the pearl sector is also encouraged.

But as I said earlier, pearl farming differs from gemstone and mineral mining in that it is a sustainable or renewable activity, and members of pearl grass-roots communities can be expected to remain actively involved in the industry for generations to come.  It, therefore, is important that these communities be provided with fair and equitable opportunities to benefit from the pearl farming enterprise, so that they will be incentivized to invest and reinvest in their future and that of the entire pearl industry.

To illustrate several of the points that I have raised, I suggest that we look French Polynesia and the Tahitian pearl industry. Now there are a number of Tahitian pearl experts here today, and I do not propose to impose upon their expertise. But from a perspective of the sustainability issues that I have raised, French Polynesia is a useful case study.

It is a country where pearls constitute a major portion of national exports, and for a good number of the country’s citizens, living in Tahiti and on numerous islands and atolls, they provide a means of living and a way of sustaining entire families and communities.

While the larger, more corporate participants in the Tahitian Cultured Pearl sector remain solid, the same cannot be said about the many family-owned operations, and their situation has impacted the pearl’s role in French Polynesia as anchor of the national economy. For almost 20 years the Tahitian Cultured Pearl industry, seen as a whole, has been a downward trajectory, with the average value of the Tahitian cultured pearl losing almost 80 percent of its value between 1995 and 2012.

The inherent problem of the Tahitian Cultured Pearl sector has been systemic. It exists in a business model in which in the bulk of the family-owned farms operating at the grass roots of the industry receive only a very small share of the added value of the pearls that they themselves produce. As a consequence, most of the pearl farmers are chronically under-financed, meaning that they lack the ability to invest the time and money necessary to achieve the full potential of their marine concessions.

Successful pearl farming, as many of you know better than I do, is the result of careful and responsible maintenance of both oysters and the aquatic environment in which they are kept, as well as time provided to allow the nacre to develop.  But many of French Polynesia’s family-owned farms felt they could do neither. With profit margins so low, they tried to compensate with increased production, and the result was lower-quality products and still lower prices. Pearl farms closed, and thousands of workers lost their jobs.  A lack of economic sustainability threated both environmental sustainability and stakeholder or community sustainability.

Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility is one of CIBJO’s core activities, In July 2007, I and members of the CIBJO Presidential Council met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to discuss CIBJO’s development mission, and to further the liaison between the international body and the world jewellery industry.

On October 29, 2007, the CIBJO Executive Committee held a one-day meeting at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva with senior UN officials, where it was agreed create together an international educational programme, designed specifically to promote corporate responsibility in the greater jewellery industry. To manage the project the World Jewellery Confederation Education Foundation (WJCEF) was established in 2008.

Over the years WJCEF has run a variety of projects in different parts of the world, backed up a team of UN-endorsed experts. With CIBJO, and under the auspices of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, it was instrumental in setting up a Centre of Excellence in CSR education for the jewellery industry in Antwerp, Belgium, 2011.

WJCEF would be delighted in working together with the pearl sector to tackle certain of the educational issues raised today.

CIBJO is also involved in ensuring the integrity of the supply chain, and cooperates with a variety of bodies in this respect, including the Responsible Jewellery Council. Through an Australian-based-foundation with which we have been working for several years, called Branded Trust, we are about to launch an online system that enables companies to educate their employees about proper supply chain due diligence, and then to introduce and implement them, as well as achieve accreditation and certification.

The harmonisation of industry standards has been a critical element of CIBJO’s mission, and has stood at the heart of its effort to protect the confidence of consumers in the jewellery product itself.

To advance the goal of universal standards and terminology in the jewellery industry, CIBJO developed its Blue Book system, which involves definitive set of standards for the grading, methodology and nomenclature of pearls and other organic materials, diamonds, coloured gemstones, precious metals and gemmological laboratories.

CIBJO has been actively involved in the development a recognized sets of terminology by the International Standards Organization (ISO). But this is a long and difficult process. In the absence of clear ISO-approved terminology, it is the CIBJO Blue Books that are most commonly referred to in official forums.

We operate transparently, with full disclosure part of parcel of our obligation to the jewellery consumer. We have to inform them exactly what we are selling. Treated and synthetic gems, for example, are not inherently immoral nor are they illegal, as long as the consumer understands exactly what they are.

But in order to be transparent – in other words to be able to disclose clearly – one needs to be able to describe the product in a language that is understood throughout the trade.   It is for reason that we are encouraging the development of a Unified Pearl Grading System, through our Pearl Commission. We realize that it is not an easy task, and that a variety of opinion exists. It will take time.

But we are patient, and believe that such system will enhance transparency, and, as a consequence, consumer confidence. And let me remind you, to operate a sustainable industry, or any business enterprise, consumer confidence is an absolute prerequisite.