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Laibach's Principle on Sustainable Recycled Precious Metals and Comment on Media Reports ...
Authored by the non-profit web resource Looking-Glass (Environmental Arts and Media) and VeggieGlobal
- mentor of Kerstin Laibach's ethical jewellery principles.

To remind Kerstin Laibach's customers of two vital main principles of her pioneering jewellery ethics:
Kerstin Laibach uses only recycled precious metals and not new-mined and no animal derivatives are used in any aspect of her pieces including the crafting tools and materials.

What is the difference between recycled gold and new-mined gold?

Absolutely nothing. Gold is gold, whether it is directly fresh-mined or old / used gold that has been endlessly recycled (refined).
For example, rainwater is rainwater; however many times it evaporates from a puddle, turns into a cloud and rains down again it's always pure rainwater.
So, recycled pure gold is identical to fresh-mined pure gold when it ends up in your jewellery.
The closest you can get to calling a form of gold "ethical" or "environmentally friendly" is recycled gold. Even then, it's the action of recycling which is ethical ... not the gold itself.
However, recycled gold is the only sound choice for the environmentally conscious jewellery buyer. There is also no difference between new-mined platinum, new mined silver and their recycled counterparts.

The word "recycled" can have negative connotations to some jewellery customers who may think the quality of recycled gold, silver,platinum or palladium made into jewellery is inferior to its fresh-mined countreparts. This is not the case at all as the information above explains.

GREENWASHING THE GOLDRUSH ...

(Part of an editorial contribution by Looking-Glass and VeggieGlobal.)

To describe any form of habitat-displacing new-mined gold, platinum and silver in jewellery as ethical and green and a "sustainable" source is contradictory and grossly misleading, and perhaps the most blatant example of greenwashing to date. There is more than enough recycled precious metals available to make jewellery indefinitely (recycling which is obviously a sustainable source) and there is no valid argument to support the backwards move from recycled to mined gold, platinum and silver - an unfortunate trend triggered by Fairtrade, as many former "ethical" jewellery makers who previously used recycled have now jumped on the Fair-mined gravy train to benefit from its lucrative rewards through Fairtrade branded promotion. The Fairtrade debacle causes more gold to be mined than previously, as more "ethical" jewellers create the demand. There is no such thing as "Sustainable" mined gold. Once gold is mined it's gone. It's not coffee or bananas which grow again.
If you want to help lift subsistence / artisnal communities out of poverty, Kerstin Laibach's solution is to donate a percentage of her profits to educational, re-naturing and development programmes in these regions, which encourages truly sustainable and profitable vocations for communities - to protect and maintain the delicate ecosystems of their rivers and forests ... instead of digging them up.
Kerstin takes a genuinely responsible approach to her ecological crafting processes by ensuring a continuous circle of sustainability. Her jewellery is made from recycled metals and natural surface gathered stones and at the end of the long life of a Laibach jewellery piece, it's fully recyclable or renewable. (Even if a piece ended its days buried as landfill waste, its component parts are all natural and harmless to the environmement.)

Intitial Response by Kerstin Laibach and Looking-Glass to the UK Channel 4 Documentary "Dispatches... The Real Price of Gold" (broadcast in 2011).

We felt the general context of the programme was well balanced. We were pleased to note that (for once) any "trend" biasing towards Fairtrade and their excursion into the gold industry was not so apparent and subsequently put more in context within the general picture regarding the overall impact of gold-mining. This meant the programme more clearly defined points of what consumers might understand about the positives and negatives of the gold supply to the jewellery industry. However, one fatal error regarding the availability of recycled gold knocked sideways the public's understanding of what they might find as as the crucial ethical choice in their jewellery shop. The programme said that recycled gold was scarce and not easily available. This could not be further from the truth and it is most odd why the programme suggested otherwise; we can only imagine that Dispatches programme researchers were misinformed from an external source. We hope that Channel 4 will notify viewers of this mistake sometime in the near future. Recycled gold is readily available from many refiners. In fact, refiners have more recycled gold available than ever because so much old gold has been sold by the public to gold buyers which is then sent to refiners, many of who only refine post consumer gold, teeth fillings etc. Laibach's own refiner even states that they are buying in more old gold than they are selling. The Channel 4 forum page has subsequently been full of comments believing that recycled gold is not readily available. One comment wrongly claimed that recycling gold was highly polluting and then went on to (bizarrely) suggest that jewellers should mine their own gold. Recycling refiners, by law, have to maintain a strict code of control on any emissions created from the refining process. The truth is that reputable refiners are now so technically advanced in safely processing precious metals, that any form of emissions that may be produced, if at all, are negligible, and absolutely nothing in comparison to the devastation created by mining. In fact, to be passed as approx 99.99% pure (24ct) and thereafter hallmarked for use as bullion or for the jewllery industry, all gold ... old and new-mined gold has to be refined to certify its purity ... including fairtrade mined gold.

Copyright Looking-Glass Environmental Arts and Media

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