Jeweler favors recycled metal
Pandora, the top jewelry firm by volume, now is sourcing solely reclaimed silver, gold
Pandora, known for its affordable sterling-silver charm bracelets, is the world’s largest jewelry company by volume: The Danish chain sells more than 100 million pieces annually. This week, it announced that it is now sourcing only 100% recycled silver and gold for its collections.
The move was touted as an important step by a massive company to reduce its environmental footprint. “We wanted to lead by example,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik said in an interview. “If we can make positive contributions to society through our use of recycled gold and silver, it means anyone can do it.”
By working with metals that have already been mined, Pandora won’t be digging deeper in search of new materials, allowing the company to substantially reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Mining requires more energy and resources than recycling and is a leading source of mercury pollution. In a 2020 news release announcing its shift to recycled metals, Pandora cited statistics from the World Gold Council and other entities showing that recycling gold reduces emissions by about 99% compared to mining it,and recycling silver cuts carbon emissions by about 66% versus mining.
Other brands, like Prada and Monica Vinader, have also started using recycled metals. But some industry observers warn that those materials can seem more virtuous than they may really be.
Like “sustainability,” the word “recycled” can mean different things to different people. That interpretation gap can prove problematic, said Tiffany Stevens, CEO of the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, an organization in New York City that focuses on ethics and policy advocacy in the industry.
“Recycled is a positive modifier in most contexts but that isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to gold or silver,” she said. The term “recycled,” she said, gives jewelry made with such materials a “green halo,” or an aura of being environmentally friendly.
But the term does not “give people any clear answers about where their metals came from,” Stevens said, which is a reason her organization and others have asked the Federal Trade Commission to disallow the use of “recycled” to describe jewelry products sold in the United States. The FTC is expected to respond this year when it releases updates to its environmental marketing guidelines.
Those guidelines currently say “it is deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that an item contains recycled content unless it is composed of materials that have been recovered or otherwise diverted from the waste stream.” Precious metals are generally not considered waste, but, because they’ve been melted and reused for centuries and typically retain their value. The term “recycled” can also obscure the origins of some metals, like those sourced by miners known for using child labor or funding criminal networks.
A team of 100 employees has been involved in the switch to recycled metals at Pandora, which moved from mined to lab-grown diamonds in 2021. The change in metal sourcing required adapting processes and equipment to measures set by the Responsible Jewellery Council, a group in London recognized for setting global standards.