We often get asked about the ethics of the Jewellery and Crystals we buy and sell.. We realise it is important to many of you as it is to us also..
The ethics of the crystals and Jewellery we sell is very important to us so I thought you might find the following information that i have written as our ethical guidelines useful.
Three issues arise when looking at the ethics of Crystals & Gemstones.
1 Labour and working Conditions
2 Environmental impact of mining.
3 Carbon Footprint
With regard to working conditions we would never knowingly purchase goods from a company that employed adults in unfair or poor working conditions.. We buy our goods from source handpicking most by hand. I visit many of the companies involved unannounced so i can see workers rights which appear simular to those in the west.
Crystals sourced from India are more difficult to give fair trade status as they are often polished and worked on by outworkers in the home environment. It is tradition for fathers pass on their skill to school age children in an informal family environment before they go on to practice the skill on leaving school it is difficult to say with 100% certainty that no young person has ever touched a crystal however I am assured that it is certainly not common practice. Here I feel that I have to accept the customs of a culture which is different to ours whilst maintaining trust by dealing with small companies that can give assurance that no one works against thier will.
Turning to matters of an environmental matter. The mines involved in Crystal Mining vary from Hand collected specimens from the surface and from small hand dug pits to larger quarries that are still tiny compared with the massive quarries created by digging for building materials and other industrial uses. We all use these industrial minerals in our every day lives and this has a huge impact on the environment compared to the mining of crystals.
We also try to lessen our impact as a company on the environment by Shipping all goods by Sea rather than air unless either the items involved are light (i.e. Jewellery or the goods are being shipped from a Country that does not have easily accessible sea ports (i.e. Congo) or the Shipping method has been dictated by our customer i.e. a special order.
