What does the World’s Purest Jewellery actually mean.
For us purity is about ethical sourcing, the origin of where our materials come from and who touches them during their life time. In every other area of fashion and luxury goods the issue of ethical production, manufacturing and procurement have become big topics of debate. No one wants to wear a pair of shoes made in a sweat shop. Yet for some reason the most expensive of retail realities; namely jewellery, has lagged behind on this most important of questions.
So for Valerio Jewellery we have drawn upon the years of experience and knowledge of its founder Greg Valerio to create ‘bespoke traceable supply chains’ that bring tangible benefits to the communities that mine our materials. The challenge we face is that this sourcing process is not simple, it is in fact very complicated.
So we do not have a one size fits all model of sourcing. Nor do we apply corporate CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) top down approaches to supply chains, because we are not corporate, we are human, and CSR is not a means of achieving sustainable transformation.
We source our materials relationally, honestly, righteously and sustainably so we adopt a values based approach to procurement. This means we make active choices when we consider sources and ask values led questions that then inform our choices.
Our values.
- Human Rights
- Indigenous Rights and Ownership
- Ecological Protection and Justice
- Transparency and Traceability
- Community / Cooperative over Corporate
- Fair Trade / Relational Economics
Every time you buy a piece of Valerio Jewellery you are directly contributing to empowering small-scale mining communities to develop their own livelihoods in a more sustainable and economically just fashion.
Our starting point is always transparency and traceability, we then ask the question, who does this purchase benefit? We actively choose small scale producers & mining communities over large scale corporations. If a product has independent or recognised certification, such as Fairtrade, Fairmined or Craft Code, as these systems directly benefit small-scale operators, we will always choose them.
This ethical sourcing is a process, given the very low bar and poor performance within the jewellery profession on ethical sourcing, we recognise, that despite the great success stories we have pioneered, such as fairtrade gold, we still have a long way to go in gemstones and diamonds. Our pledge is to use our jewellery business to continue to pioneer ethical sourcing according to our values, as well as campaign for verifiable change throughout the jewellery profession from mine to retail.