Material Investigations | Gold
Our first Material Investigations: Gold explores different traceable gold products through Q&A style articles with suppliers and organisations. These articles are to inspire further research, evoke change within one’s sourcing choices and/or drive advocacy within bettering the wider jewellery and silver industry supply chains.
Understanding the origin of one’s raw material is often the first and greatest step to take towards a more responsible and sustainable creative practice. Material choice can account for up to 95% of a product's social and environmental impact1. Precious metals, including gold, are finite and require different extraction processes, resulting in complex supply chains. Although gold is extracted for many purposes; in technology and investment, 49% of mined gold makes jewellery, therefore, jewellery remains the largest single use for newly mined gold2.
Jewellery and gold products can be scrapped to create recycled bullion, yet there are also questions around what constitutes as ‘scrap’ and the traceability of recycled product supply chains.
Read our brief description of precious metal sourcing in the materials section of this resource:
Throughout history gold mining has been consistently associated with human rights violations and child labour, ecological degradation and displacement, use of mercury and dangerous work conditions3.
Fortunately, there are initiatives driving necessary industry reform, striving for social cohesion and ecological preservation. In this upcoming series you will hear directly from the initiatives and suppliers committed to traceable gold supply. Although this series is focused on gold there will be mentions of other precious metal supply, including silver.
It is important to highlight that The Scottish Goldsmiths Trust does not verify any of the claims made by interviewed suppliers, but instead introduces diverse types of traceable gold available to purchase, allowing you to make further enquiries to inform your metal sourcing. We hope this series informs you of traceable gold initiatives that claim to be responsibly sourced and supportive of social and environmental factors in their supply chains.
We look forward to sharing the Material Investigations: Gold with you soon.
1. Pre-published data, get in touch for more information.
2. World Gold Council (2022) Gold Facts. Available at: https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-facts (Accessed: 31/08/2022).
3. Human Rights Watch (2018) Behind the Shine: A Call to Action for the Jewelry Industry https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/08/behind-shine-call-action-jewelry-industry (Accessed: 31/08/2022).