Chopard to use 100 Percent Ethical Gold in line with Sustainability Goals

Chopard’s Co-Presidents recently took advantage of the most fitting backdrop to reveal that from July 2018 the company will be using 100 percent ethical gold in its jewellery and watches. Speaking at a special event during Baselworld 2018, the world’s biggest and most important watch and jewellery fair, Caroline and Karl-Friedrich Scheufele outlined how they were able to achieve this milestone. And long-term supporters of the luxury jewellery and watch maison, Colin and Livia Firth, Julianne Moore, Arizona Muse, Noella Coursaris and Roy Wang, were there to champion the landmark announcement.

“True luxury comes only when you know the handprint of your supply chain and I am very proud of our gold sourcing programme,” Caroline Scheufele, who is also Chopard’s Creative Director, said. “I am so proud to share the stories behind each beautiful piece to our customers and know they will wear these stories with pride.” 

Sustainability has always been a core value for the family run business. And using ethical gold, which is acquired from responsible sources and verified as having met international best practice environmental and social standards, is the culmination of a vision. From July, Chopard’s gold will be responsibly sourced from artisanal freshly mined gold from small-scale mines participating in the Swiss Better Gold Association (SBGA), Fairmined and Fairtrade schemes. The maison joined SBGA in 2017. It will also be sourced from the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) Chain of Custody gold, through Chopard’s partnership with RJC-certified refineries. Chopard hopes to increase the proportion of artisanal gold it buys to the maximum as it becomes more available on the market.

Chopard also used the six-day fair to present a new high jewellery collection called “Green Carpet,” which is exclusively made from Fairmined gold. The Swiss company, which is in fact the largest buyer of Fairmined gold, also presented two other pieces made from the certified ethical gold, the high horlogery “L.U.C Full Strike” watch and the “Happy Palm” watch.

Chopard’s Journey to becoming a Sustainable Force
Once the Scheufele family took over the company founded by Louis-Ulysse Chopard in 1860, they made ethics a crucial part of the maison’s mission. The family started to invest in mastering all crafts internally. They developed a vertically integrated in-house production with a rare in-house gold foundry founded in 1978 and sought the skills of high jewellery artisans and expert watchmakers. By crafting everything in-house, the maison can guarantee control of all processes, from manufacturing to final product, therefore controlling the gold used in its products.

Another major step came in 2012, when Chopard became a certified member of the Responsible Jewellery Council, which they joined in 2010. Plus, in 2013 Chopard took the long-term decision to directly invest in artisanal gold, to bring more of it to the market. Working with the Alliance for Responsible Mining, they have been providing financial and technical resources so that small-scale mines achieve Fairmined certification. Chopard also helped establish new trade routes from the mines they source from in South America, bringing traceable products into Europe and providing further financial income into local communities.

Chopard additionally launched the ‘Journey to Sustainable Luxury’ programme in partnership with Eco-Age. The multi-year programme is a commitment to sourcing responsibly and helping the real people in the supply chain who are all too often overlooked. The announcement at Baselworld also marked the next phase of the sustainability programme, with the house unveiling its alignment with the ambitious and much needed UN Global Goals. Launched in 2015, the set of interrelated 17 global goals set out by the United Nations cover an array of social and economic development targets to be reached by 2030. Chopard has defined which of the goals they could have greatest influence upon and which metrics are to be used to track the company’s contribution to the achievement of the 2030 objectives. They will report on their progress as part of their ongoing commitment to corporate responsibility and contribution to wider sustainable development issues.