At the start of the year I went to the Fair Luxury meeting of 2021 pledgers, reviewing the year and I’ve been thinking, since then, about what to pledge for 2022.

My 2021 pledge

As you might remember, in 2021 I made a pledge through Fair Luxury, to plant one tree for every order over £100. If clients ordered partnership, engagement, or wedding rings (even if the order was only for one ring) I’d plant one tree for every person in a relationship.

After looking at different charities, and after some consultation with my newsletter subscribers I decided to use Ecologi for this. They plant around 12 trees per month for a subscription price, I also opted to add on the planting of one tree a month in the UK to ensure I was contributing to the landscape here. Native tree species are planted to ensure biodiversity.

My sales in 2021 resulted in me needing to plant 78 trees. In fact I planted a total of 248 in 2021. You can view my forest here. If you want to set up your own forest you can use this link! If you’ve placed an order over £100 with me since the start of Jan 2021, thank you I’ve planted a tree because of it.

Some of my 2021 commissions that resulted in tree planting.

At the start of this year I went to the Fair Luxury meeting. There were a couple of examples in the meeting of people who found it difficult to achieve the goal due to outside factors, like things taking longer than expected once they delved into it. So I wanted to make sure my 2022 goal was within my control to some extent.

Option 1 - Use only SMO gold

I thought about making a pledge about the type of metal I use. 

I currently use recycled silver and golds from Cookson Gold as well as Single Mine Origin (SMO) gold  and recycled silver from Betts Metal Sales. I also occasionally have items cast in recycled Platinum with Vipa. I’ve found through doing quotes for a couple of commissions that SMO gold is around the same price as recycled gold. So I thought I could pledge to only use this in my commissions and stock pieces by the end of 2022. 

However, that doesn’t give you the choice of what you want to use in your commissions. Perhaps you don’t want to use any freshly mined gold at all? Maybe you’d rather use recycled material? This level of choice and control in your commmissions is what I want you to have.

You’ll always be able to ask for quotes in different metals if you want to see a variety of prices.

Option 2 - Only using recycled metal for fittings

Another option would be to source only recycled fittings and findings for the jewellery I make by the end of the year. So things like the silver chains, earring posts, butterflies as well as cufflink fittings. The supplier I use for these, T H Findings as far as I know doesn’t have anything in recycled metals, or at least not listed as being made with recycled metal. 

I could hand make a lot of these findings from recycled metals, but that’d mean a drastic increase in my prices. If I were to hand make each cufflink back for every pair that would add more time cost to each invoice. 

I think there’s still some research for me to do here, and I don’t want to put down a pledge that would be impossible to achieve.

Everything along this journey I’m on to be more sustainable is a balance and a learning curve and constantly in flux. I didn’t feel that those two were the right option for this year.

Option 3 - Source recyclable/sustainable packaging.

As you’ll know, from being here on my website, I’ve rebranded and had this beautiful new website built, all by the talented Sarah Creates. I’ve got new business cards, thank you cards, care cards and even tissue paper to wrap your lovely jewellery in. The one thing I’ve not got sorted yet is my new packaging.

Sarah designed this beautiful packaging, which you might have seen if you follow me on Instagram. Isn’t it gorgeous?

While Sarah was working behind the scenes getting the website ready for launch in July, I was trying to source a packaging supplier that could bring this vision to life. 

I got in touch with a company I’ve used before, and by the time the website launch in July I thought we had it sorted. I’d chosen a paper that had the texture we were looking for and Sarah had made the artwork to fit the box shape and size, so it was time to move to price and printing. However they then came back and said it wasn’t possible to use the paper we’d chosen, and explained that I’d misunderstood what was possible. I’d spent months trying to get the new boxes made.

I persevered, but they kept changing what they’d said, or not answering my questions - I got disillusioned. I desperately need new boxes that reflect the quality of my work, but every time I thought about contacting the company to try and make progress my gut feeling was not to do it and I procrastinated A LOT. I decided to share the boxes on my Instagram stories, I wanted to see the response and see what people thought of them. The response they got was phenomenal.

Bouyed by this, I decided to go ahead despite my instincts telling me not to, I contacted the company again, only to be told the price might have changed as it had been a few months since they’d originally quoted. Another obstacle in my path, so I finally listened to my gut and took it to be a sign not to go ahead.

This year, rather than looking around for new challenges for my Fair Luxury pledge; even more things to do and focus on, it’s my plan to continue with this one.

My boxes and packaging are such an important part of my jewellery. It’s the first thing you’ll see usually so I want it to be beautiful and to convey the value of the jewellery you’ll find inside.

In December 2021 I did more research into other packaging companies and I’m currently talking to one who’s working with me and advising the best way to achieve what I’m looking for. I think I’m on my way to finding a good balance between beautiful packaging that is sustainable, recyclable while still reflecting the exceptional quality you can expect of my jewellery.

My 2022 pledge:

To have new packaging made for my jewellery that is sustainable and recyclable while still conveying the quality and value of my jewellery by the start of June 2022.

Wish me luck!