Creating Change Together | Ethical Making Ambassador Session
EM Ambassadors with special guests Ute Decker & Lisa Rothwell Young on Zoom
As part of the Ethical Making Pledge, we have biannual sessions with student ambassadors from across all signatory institutions. This academic year ambassadors have been creating change through making: by identifying new opportunities, and keeping up current good practices.
First, programme manager for Ethical Making, Dr Karen Westland offered a re-cap on the first session, which outlined different types of extractive mining and the supply chains involved before encouraging ambassadors to develop a ChangeMaking project, to champion an aspect of the Ethical Making Pledge on their course during the 2022/23 academic year. In this second session, Karen encouraged ambassadors to be mindful of industry terms: whether they are claims made my suppliers or claims the ambassadors or their peers make. Using the term ‘recycled’ as an example, we explored the complexity and importance of being specific and/or justifying any claims made with evidence.
To support the discussion, we invited sculptural jeweller Ute Decker and fine jeweller Lisa Rothwell Young to inspire and further support the ambassador activities.
“…now absolutely everybody is ‘extraordinarily green’, and making those [ethical, sustainable, responsible] claims. For the consumer, the trust in those claims are very, very fragile and we are in danger of losing any trust…It’s about being honest.
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- Ute Decker
Ute Decker is a pioneer of the international ethical jewellery movement. She works predominantly in recycled silver and was one of the very first worldwide to create pieces in Fairtrade Gold. Ute created the largest online resource on ethical jewellery practice which became the initial basis for this Resource: ethicalmaking.org. She continues to support our Ethical Making (EM) Programme through her voluntary position on the EM Committee.
Ute delved deeper into the discussion around recycled precious metals and outlined the resources she offers via her website (featured below). Expanding on Karen’s introduction, Ute shared their perspective on increasingly used terms, ‘recycled’, ‘repurposed’, ‘sustainable’, ‘responsible’ and ‘ethical’ and outlined guides which aim to address greenwashing issues. Ute noted that when they started, nobody in the industry wanted to talk about being green, whereas, “now absolutely everybody is ‘extraordinarily green’, and making those [ethical, sustainable, responsible] claims. For the consumer, the trust in those claims are very, very fragile and we are in danger of losing any trust” Ute advocated for being honest about what we are doing and what areas need more work; and that this transparent approach builds trust.
Ute’s clients buy her work because of the aesthetic design, not necessarily her sourcing or practices. When shared, her ethical approach is generally received positively by customers. Furthermore, Ute’s strong design approach attracts a captive market, allowing the fair price of Fairtrade gold (which is more expensive than other products available, due to strong certification standard) to be embedded within her business approach. Keeping things simple, Ute offers Fairtrade gold and recycled silver to clients, because those are her preferred choice.
“We do need to use the words that our customers use and search online for, but it’s a good idea to explain how we define things.”
- Lisa Rothwell Young
Lisa Rothwell Young is a fine jeweller working with ethically and sustainably sourced precious metals (Fairtrade and recycled) and uses responsibly sourced coloured gemstones and diamonds that are traceable to the mine. She also offers recycled/antique and laboratory created diamonds and encourages her customers to remodel their old jewellery into modern designs. More broadly, Lisa’s jewellery practice is vegan and cruelty free – considering the full impact of her bespoke jewellery based on her own ethics.
Lisa talked about how we share our message with our customers through branding and marketing. Building on from Ute’s thoughts on greenwashing, Lisa outlined how businesses can control the public’s perceptions through clever marketing which portrays a specific, often aspirational lifestyle. Greenwashing can occur deliberately by saying something is more ethical or environmentally than it really is, but can also happen unintentionally, when people don’t fully explaining what they mean when making claims. The reality is that we rely on a common terms (‘ethical’, ’sustainable’ and ‘responsible’) to help clients find our products, yet our understanding of these terms will often differ. An example critically discussed with the ambassadors was the term ‘conflict free’ relating to the Kimberley Process: an industry certification scheme for diamonds. Lisa advocated for transparency: clearly outlining your ethos and definitions which she does regularly through her website guide, blogs and social media, which has in turn attracted clients with aligning values.
Lisa prides herself in creating ‘story pieces’ which incorporate her clients’ life stories based on conversations, and many of her designs have strong environmental connections.
Ambassador Session Summary
During the session, ambassadors shared their ChangeMaking Projects which included reducing waste through the maintenance and re-use of tools and materials, recycling and ordering from suppliers collectively. We were also exploring alternative pickles, using sea glass or alternative materials to learn bezel setting. Developing ways to label or create posters to simply communicate how to be more conscious and WHY certain materials or practices have been chosen. Organising quizzes and ambassador presentations to raise awareness and surveys to gather information on what does and does not work were also areas ambassadors wanted to facilitate through their role.
Ute’s closing remarks encouraged Ambassadors exploring similar themes to get together as a team: that way they don’t need to double-up the work and can share research with the EM Resource to reach a wider audience.
A big thank you to all the ambassadors who joined us for the sessions this year and in collaborating with their peers and course leaders. A special thank you also to Ute and Lisa for energising the ambassadors to further develop their projects and thinking and practice toward ethical making in their studies. We received brilliant feedback from ambassadors who were appreciative to hear directly from Ute and Lisa about their experience.
To share more about how the EM Ambassadors projects created change in their course, we will publish Retrospective blogs at the end of the 2022/23 academic year, to celebrate and reflect on collective efforts to support ethical making theory and practice in education. Below are previous retrospective blogs written in collaboration with former ambassadors.