Material Investigations | Fairmined Part 1: A General Look at Fairmined
Fairmined is an initiative to be on every jeweller and silversmith’s radar. At the forefront of driving necessary industry reform, Fairmined connects certified responsible mines, with gold buyers. To find out more and present an overview of Fairmined’s commitment to a fairer, traceable supply chain, we have been in touch with Fairmined’s Market Development Executive, Laura Glavis to answer our questions.
Fairmined’s feature in this Material Investigation series has been separated into two parts: Part one is a general look at Fairmined, and Part two will focus on the Fairmined Standard and the revision process.
This post is part of our Material Investigations: Gold series that investigates options for sourcing traceable gold through Q&A style articles. The Scottish Goldsmiths Trust does not verify any of the claims made by interviewed suppliers or organisations but instead aims to introduce diverse types of traceable gold available to purchase, allowing you to make further enquiries to inform your metal sourcing. For more information read the series introduction below:
What is Fairmined?
Fairmined is an assurance label that certifies gold from empowered, responsible artisanal and small-scale mining organizations.
It was created by the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), a Colombian non-profit organization globally recognized as a pioneer supporter of Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) miners. ARM works in the transformation and social development of the sector in general, at all levels; Fairmined comes in as the highest assurance label for organizations with the biggest transformations, and for that they are awarded with a premium price of $4USD (United States Dollars) per gram of gold, access to the global market and a fair price for their gold.
In order to provide the market with easy access to certified and completely traceable gold, the Fairmined Standard also outlines market models and requirements for market actors: Authorized Suppliers and Licensed Brands, who are key to ensure complete traceability throughout the supply chain from the mine to the final customer.
How has the Fairmined initiative impacted mining communities and their local environment?
More than 72M USD worth of ASM gold have been sold benefiting local communities, and over 6M USD of premium paid for ASM development. The certified mining organizations must have in place an implementation plan, stating exactly how they plan to use this, such as, it to improve their operations, working conditions and developing projects that benefit the community.
What is Fairmined Ecological Gold, how does this differentiate from Fairmined gold?
Fairmined Ecological gold is gold from mining organizations that meet all environmental requirements from the Fairmined Standard from year one. In addition, it goes a step further and complies with stricter environmental requirements: the non-use of toxic mercury or cyanide in the gold extraction process, these mining organizations receive a premium of 6 USD for every gram of gold. Fairmined Ecological gold is the only certified gold of its type available today in the market.
La Coqueta, Colombia
What are Fairmined’s aspirational objectives for the future?
Our objective is to completely transform the ASGM sector into a force of good. Today the sector still works mostly unregulated, this means, uncertainty about origin, traceability, working conditions; extracted without planning, protection of the miners, human rights or the environment. In contrast, Fairmined certified mines and their work count for a very small portion of the gold available out there (a lot less that 1% with 7 certified mines), but there is great potential and also a great challenge in turning this around by bringing visibility to the Fairmined initiative and generating a demand that could be impactful for the sector.
We believe that transformation is an ongoing process and that there is always room for improvements, so the Fairmined standard is under review because it constantly needs to adapt to this complex and transformative sector: to be able to provide the best tools and access to gold to be proud of and to support the artisanal mining communities.
And in hand with this, we wish for Fairmined gold to be globally considered the highest standard and a clear representation of the best sources behind a luxury item, when talking about jewellery and gold.
What steps would a jeweller reading this take to begin making in Fairmined metals? What is available?
Jewellers can reach out to our team, we are ready to guide all incoming brands through their licensing process, it is very straightforward, and we will make sure you find the best partners to create your first line made of Fairmined metals. The license allows you to make claims about the usage of Fairmined gold and hallmark your pieces (when using the labelled sourcing model which requires to completely segregate Fairmined gold from any traces of other types of gold).
Gold is our main focus as we certify gold mines exclusively. Fairmined gold is available under a range of forms and presentations to create their unique pieces, even as powder, gold sheet or for plating. There is also some Fairmined silver available, but this is a by-product which only certain mines process. To know more about the Fairmined metals offer, we recommend directly contacting our suppliers.
Miners at Copia de Xamodx, Mongolia
Can you recommend any further reading on Fairmined that may be of interest to our audience?
For new brands who are looking to join the initiative, I especially recommend this blog on how to start with Fairmined:
Fairmined have some additional friendly reads available there on a variety of topics of interest, such as:
and the most recent blog series:
Finally, I would like to share this video about the Journey to the Origins, a trip that a group of 20 members of the initiative took last May to the gold mines in Peru:
A Journey to the Origins - Fairmined Peru
Thank you, Laura, for answering our questions and sharing further information on Fairmined.
Read/watch more on Fairmined:
Fairmined: a path to a better future / Fairmined: un camino hacia un mejor futuro