How Chopard became the first ethical luxury jewellery brand

At a star-studded press conference in the Swiss town of Basel in March last year, Chopard made a bold announcement While ethical jewellery practices, and gold sourcing in particular, has been a focus for many smaller jewellers and designer-makers across the world, Chopard is the first major luxury jewellery brand to have made such a public -and complete -pledge to sustainably sourced precious metals The announcement was a milestone for Chopard, but its involvement with the ethical jewellery movement started long before, with the launch of its Journey to Sustainable Luxury project six years ago, as co-president and artistic director Caroline Scheufele tells us.

What made you first think about creating luxury jewellery in a more ethical manner? "Yes, we are part of it We are the famous jeweller of the red carpet-in Cannes, at the Oscars, the Baftas-so we use this privileged position to turn the red carpet green whenever it is possible We love offering actresses the chance to wear ethical pieces, and they feel proud to be associated to this great initiative.

In Cannes last year, actress Julianne Moore wore a fantastic necklace from the Green Carpet collection Charlize Theron, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux and Gemma Arterton wore some too." Do you feel there is an increasing demand for ethical jewellery? "There is definitely a great interest.This is thanks to the younger generations who realised the real luxury is to know the provenance of a luxury good When one talks about luxury, many customers nowadays want to be sure that they buy products which were manufactured under the best possible working conditions and with social responsibility.

The demand is real, although the path to reach it is a journey, but one that we must pursue if we are to make a difference to the lives of those people who make our business possible." . Source