1 de Octubre de 2012
October 1, 2012
Last Friday, the 28th of September, it was announced that The Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) had officially recognized Section A of the Fairtrade and Fairmined (FT&FM) Standard as a “Responsible Mining Standard” under the RJC Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard for precious metals. This recognition means RJC CoC Certified refiners can now source from Fairtrade and Fairmined (FT&FM) certified ASM producers.
The recognition allows FT&FM certified artisanal and small scale miners to be further integrated the formal economy under USA Dodd-Frank legislation and OECD due diligence guidelines governing gold supply chains and refiners. Giving Fairtrade and Fairmined (FT&FM) certified the miners expanded access to chain-of-custody pathways through to RJC’s Membership in the jewelry supply chain, allows the miners to have access to a larger number of responsible buyers and therefore the possibility to sell more gold in formal and responsible markets.
The RJC has recognized the standard to support the work of ARM and FLO with certified artisanal and small-scale producers. The recognition has no influence on the Fairtrade and Fairmined standard requirements and only Fairtrade and Fairmined licensed RJC members that comply fully with the Fairtrade and Fairmined (FT&FM) standards can label the gold Fairtrade and Fairmined.
ARM welcomes the recognition as it opens up an additional market for FT&FM certified producers and contributes to our goal of formally integrating ASM in the industry.
We invite you to read the explanatory Q&A for more clarification and information on the subject as well RJC´s press release.