THE IJL GREAT DEBATE – 5TH SEPTEMBER 2007 –A SYNOPSIS

Among the many events supporting the Exhibition at International Jewellery London, was the first IJL Great Debate, hosted by The Birmingham Assay Office in partnership with Reed Exhibitions. 

Appropriately this proved to be a truly international event with panellists and delegates from around the world.

Michael Allchin, Chief Executive and Assay Master of The Birmingham Assay Office welcomed an international gathering of delegates and introduced the panellists. Each panellist then gave a brief presentation.

PRESENTATIONS

1. Michael Allchin:  Chief Executive and Assay Master,
The Birmingham Assay Office

Background to the Debate –

Michael delivered a brief overview of the background for the Debate and the issues involved. These included Conflict Diamonds, Dirty Gold and the way the industry has responded via the Kimberley Process, the founding of the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices, and under the leadership of CIBJO.

Michael reminded the audience of the precarious dependency of over 10 million people worldwide on Western Jewellery consumers.

2. Catherine Sproule:  Head of the Council for
Responsible Jewellery Practices for North

America

Catherine explained that the objective of the CRJP is to promote responsible Ethical, Social and Environmental practices throughout the diamond and gold jewellery supply chain, from mine to retail.  She talked about changing customer expectations and values and the response required from the jewellery industry.  Catherine outlined the Code of Practices and the CRJP’s timetable to trial, implement and monitor Responsible Practices.

3. Greg Valerio – Cred Jewellery

Ethical jeweller Greg Valerio described his approach to the jewellery industry. He considers design and ethics to be key to success in the future and is actively encouraging jewellery students to work to ethical standards.  He strongly believes that if we embrace the challenge collectively the industry can bring about change. Greg spoke about the difficulties of ethical sourcing and achievements to date. He referred to technology which already exists to track gold from mine to retail; this is not an impossible task.

4. Steve Lenahan; Executive Officer, Corporate Affairs,  AngloGold Ashanti

Steve was unfortunately unable to attend the Debate in person, his presentation was delivered by Jan Springer.

Steve’s presentation explained the realities and responsibilities of modern mining and how Anglo Gold Ashanti has responded. He outlined the challenge of turning mineral resources into real wealth in a sustainable way so that the local community derive long terms benefits. AngloGold Ashanti believe that challenges associated with safety and health, the environment and the association with illegal political activity and human rights abuses can best be addressed by adopting a multi-stakeholder approach with governments taking a lead role in addressing the issue along with artisanal miners, large scale miners, NGOs and development agencies. A number of projects are underway: Steve cited examples of where structures have been created to address these issues at both an international and local level.

5. Dewa Made Sastrawan, Minister Counsellor for Economic Affairs, Indonesian Embassy

Dewa spoke on behalf of “Mutumanikam Nusantara”a recently formed non profit organisation which is helping small to medium sized jewellery enterprises to build a solid export business. He described its work to enhance the existing Indonesian jewellery industry to create employment and encourage SME’s to compete in international markets.  In July 2006 less than 10,000 people were employed in the jewellery industry, by 63 large to medium sized companies. The organisation has an objective to grow this significantly.

6. Annie Dunnebacke – Campaigner Global Witness 

Annie outlined the objectives of Global Witness, their activities and the response they have prompted so far. Annie acknowledged the Kimberley Process as a major step forward but highlighted the fact that there are weaknesses in the process.  Global Witness will continue to campaign to ensure  that the atrocities that Conflict Diamonds perpetuated in the early 1990’s do not recur and Annie emphasized that the industry must  all work together to address these issues.

Following the presentations there was then an open Forum for questions:

Geoff Field, Chief Executive, British Jewellers Association asked how people could avail themselves of the technology which Greg Valerio had referred to establish transparency of gold and traceability from mine to retail.

Much discussion followed. There was a feeling that it would be impossible; Greg is working with the Fairtrade supply chain in the small scale sector but acknowledged that low volume business is much easier to trace.

Greg said he had been assured that technology developed in response to corruption and smuggling, which is used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the South African government.  The same technology offers the industry an opportunity to create a programme for traceable gold.

Steve Lenahan verified this after the Debate: “We initiated a research programme some time ago which sought to identify the origins of gold samples based on their trace elements.    The purpose of this work was part of an effort to deal with the theft of gold bearing material from our underground mines.   The project was funded by a number of South African mining companies.   Since then, however, the project has been transferred to the Forensic Laboratories of the South African Police Services in Pretoria, though it is still funded by the mining industry.   Similar work is being done in a number of other countries”. There was some consensus that traceability of gold is possible but there needs to be a political will to do it.

Jack Ogden, Chief Executive, Gemmological Association commented that Coloured Stones had not been included in the presentation and said that Gem-A are working on this aspect. Jack then asked for CRJP and Anglo Gold Ashanti’s view on the current debate regarding the exploration of the Arctic and the possibility of opening it up for mineral exploration.  Catherine Sproule said she would initiate a discussion at the next CRJP Policy meeting. Steve Lenahan replied that “AngloGold Ashanti currently has no exploration projects in Arctic regions.   In principle, however, our approach to the environment, conservation and heritage considerations would be the same in this region as they are in respect of any other.”

Gordon Hamme, editor of j Dex magazine said that as an ex bullion dealer he believed tracking gold though the supply chain to be almost impossible. Due to the continual gathering of metals from different sources into one homogenous product it would be very difficult to trace the origin of each part and definitely uneconomic on a large scale

Michael Allchin responded that while the gold currently in circulation came from unknown sources, going forward it should be traced. The industry has to start somewhere.

Jan Springer said there are some 2,500 metric tons of newly mined fine gold every year Gordon said that making the excuse it is impossible to trace gold is not an option for the industry but they must be realistic in their expectations.

Greg Valerio questioned whether the “Good Friends and Neighbours" policy referred to by Steve Lenahan offers land rights as well as mining rights to artisanal miners. Steve replied “Surface rights – that is, the ownership of the land itself – do not change hands when mining rights are granted by the government, as is the case in most jurisdictions.  However, in our “Good Friends and Neighbours” programme, as is the case in large scale mining, the mining rights, over which the government has custodianship, are allocated to the individual miner or mining company.  In our case, in theory, should we decide to return to a property at some future stage, we would negotiate a price for the re-acquisition of the rights from the artisanal miner under the stewardship, of course, of the government.”

Rachel Watkyn, MD of the Tiny Difference Company, asked if anyone knew of a source of traceable silver in Ghana. She was referred to the Chamber of Mines in Accra.

Various other comments and contributions were made. The audience was evidently highly engaged with the subject and many positive remarks were volunteered about the need to work together and the benefits of having brought people together for this event.

Willie Hamilton, who recently joined the jewellery industry as Chief Executive of the Company of Master Jewellers after a career in the grocery industry, ended the debate with a challenge to his new colleagues.  He reminded them that ten years ago the food industry were facing the same problems which many thought were impossible to overcome but the trend towards conscientious consumption leaves the jewellery industry no option but to find a solution or suffer the consequences.

Summing up Michael Allchin said “ The diverse audience representing organisations from around the world have made this into an unprecedented event.  Senior officials from the major UK jewellery organisations were all here too and we feel it has been very worthwhile and positive.  Our objective was to inform and provoke thoughts and action – I feel we have achieved that today”

Web links for more information:

www.responsiblejewellery.com

www.credjewellery.com

www.globalwitness.org

www.anglogold.com