How market-driven certification systems are emerging inthe mining sector and why they can have a positive impactfor consumers, producers and communities.by Maria Laura Barreto

Beyond promises:In search of what is “good”

Mining News

a “good” product. It allows producers and consumers to use common short-hand that helps us navigate the choices around what cup of coffee we drink or what piece of jewellery we purchase for our loved ones or for ourselves. Clearly, certification can be a great tool, but it cannot be approached naively and still requires some due diligence in discerning between empty promises and those that represent genuine quality control systems. Fortunately, there are organizations like ISEAL (www.isealalliance.org) that have been established to help us understand, in more rigorous terms, what kind of practices we should look for in certification systems. In spite of the challenges and complexities, I believe these market-based initiatives are here to stay. The same consumers that ask questions about their food have learned to ask ethical questions about the other goods, especially those that have emotional symbolism attached to the product. I have come to believe so much in this approach that, over the last seven years, I have devoted a big part of my time to volunteer at an organization that works with certification of artisanal and small scale gold mining. Luckily for me, I recently had the chance to experience it on a very personal level and I would like to share this with you. When I turned 50, my husband gave me a small but exquisite gold pen-dant. It may not have been worth as much as some of the jewellery pieces I have bought and received throughout my life, but when I learned of the story behind it, it became irreplaceable to me. My husband didn’t know much about gold or jewellery but he found a very good local jeweller who was able to take my husband’s personal design ideas and turn them into a very lovely, unique piece. He decided that if he was go-ing to create something really meaningful, the gold needed to be very special – not so much in terms of the karats or the colour of the gold (which were of very high quality) but in the sense of how and where it was produced. That’s why he chose certified gold and in doing so, he didn’t have any hesitation in paying a 10 per cent premium on the price of the raw material. My husband knew the premium would be returned to the miners who would be able to use it to invest in the development of their community. It was a small percentage of the total price but a large investment in the inherent virtue of the pendant. It was, if you will, a way of genuinely spreading the love and care of this unique gift. To come back to my earlier theme, it is encouraging to know that society is not only demanding more dreams, but is also starting to give us the tools that can help us realize them. CJ

MOST OF US SEEK TO BUY AND SELL the best possible products. But, as I have explored in previous columns, this simple, virtuous aspiration is becom-ing increasingly complex. Jewellery markets and related mining activities are becoming more intertwined for ethical reasons. That’s why I want to drill down (pun intended) into some of the topics concerning the quality of our jewellery and how its production can promote environmental protection and more healthy mining communities. In the 1980s, as a young lawyer in Brazil, I found myself in the middle of a debate about the potential use of voluntary initiatives instead of government regulations and enforcement. At the time, I didn’t think these kinds of solu-tions were effective in addressing the struggles of the mining sector. These initiatives only looked like a movement to just de-regulate a sector that, on the contrary, needed to have better rules around the access to and sharingof resources. It was only in middle of the 1990s that I came to understand that voluntary initiatives, in particular market-driven certification systems, could actually be complementary to laws and useful to us (as consumers, retailers and produc-ers) in improving industry practices. While these schemes had already been applied to the agriculture and forestry industries, I started to realize that it might be possible for independent, third party certification to deliver perfor-mance standards that could promote leadership in the mining sector. I started to see the power of the market at work. Through certification, products could be differentiated; they could stand apart from similar products and create a genuine competitive advantage. The difference in the perfor-mances of social and environmental companies was being compared to that of the difference between a common diamond and one with a higher quality cut, polish or a colour. Certification has continued to evolve into an effective tool that helpscreate unique, valuable products and address various needs including those of emerging ethical markets. As a result, over the last three decades, we have seen a remarkable growth of these systems to the tune of over $30 billionlast year. In the mining and jewellery sectors, however, certification is still is a new phenomenon and with this novelty comes a lot of questions about how and where this approach is most relevant and what its costs are. As we evaluate these benefits and expenses, it is important to understand that not all certifi-cations systems are equal. A key indication of a high-quality system is that it distills a complex set of issues and choices into a simpler and more reliable decision about purchasing

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