Sustainable JewellersAssociation

Rarity is not a virtue.

We are an open association for jewellers who hold that the standing of a piece rests on how it was made, who was paid for making it, and whether it was built to last: not on how scarce its materials happen to be.

A silversmith's hands hold a punch steady against a steel block on the anvil, rings on her fingers, hammers and silver blanks laid out around her.
The work is the argument. Everything the association asks of a member is about what happens at this bench, and what they are willing to say about it in public.

Our position

Scarcity is a supply story, not a moral one. We set out the case for a different account of what makes a piece worth having, and we make it in the open where it can be argued with.

Read the position

The Code

Seven commitments, covering sourcing, labour, environmental impact, honest marketing, customer dealing, craft, and progress. Members sign them in their own name and restate where they have got to once a year.

Read the seven commitments

Membership

Open to any jeweller who signs the Code: bench makers, independent shops, studios, online sellers. No ballot, no invitation, and no grade of membership to buy. The signature is the membership, and signing is free.

See who can join

The Bench

A working room for signatories who have nobody to delegate a new regulation to. It costs money, it is not open yet, and it leaves no mark on the roster: a member who pays for it is listed in exactly the same words as one who does not.

What will be in the room

What survives is the argument.

A piece that can be resized, restrung and restored has a different relationship to waste than one built to be replaced. That is where we think sustainability actually lives in this trade.

Not as a material you can buy and then claim, but as a practice you keep: repair kept available, skills kept trained, pieces kept in use for a second and third lifetime, and claims kept true while you do it.

The commitments that follow from that

Seen from above: two hands threading a bracelet back onto a bead loom, seed beads and pliers on the felt beside them.
Restringing is one of the four words in the sixth commitment. It is also the plainest test of it: a piece that can be taken apart and put back together has a different future from one that cannot.

Founding members are being admitted now.

The association is new. The first cohort of signatories will be listed together when it is seated, rather than trickled out one name at a time — a roster of one is not a roster.

If you want your name in that first list, apply now. Signing the Code is free and stays free.

Apply to join