The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM)  recently endorsed an Open Letter to the Jewelry Industry where different jewelry actors expressed their concern regarding the transparency of supply chains with metals coming from Russia which may be financing human rights abuses.  

In the last month, the Responsible Jewelry Council has experienced controversy related to its ethical position with regard to the actual war in Ukraine. We expect that RJC addresses potential conflicts of interest at the governance level with complete transparency and in a way that ensures the stakeholders that RJC stands by the standards and ideals that they have always publicly endorsed.

ARM, therefore, announces the suspension of our participation in the multi-stakeholder Standard Committee of the RJC until we feel assured again that our institutions share the same values with regard to ethical trade and ensure Human Rights compliance.

At ARM we firmly believe in collaboration and harmonization between initiatives to bring Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining into the mainstream. ARM and RJC have cooperated for a decade, aiming to facilitate the inclusion of gold produced by responsible artisanal and small-scale miners into jewelry supply chains. During this time, both organizations have contributed to the development of the RJC standards and CRAFT Code, and Fairmined Standards. At the same time, alignment was achieved to facilitate the joint audit experience of RJC and Fairmined authorized companies, and several activities promoting the ASM gold to the RJC members were jointly undertaken. 

Shaping the future of the industry´s sustainability, including meeting the challenge and opportunity of supporting ASM and integrating it into the supply chain, requires a bold vision, ethical integrity, and timely actions. We hope that the recent events have a catalytic effect on the RJC and that it sparks an honest reflection on responsible sourcing in the luxury industry, assessing the real positive and negative impacts behind different choices, and strengthening the governance to transparently promote such the most ambitious outcomes. As a multi-stakeholder sustainability standards system for ASM, ARM is ready to be part of such a debate, if and when the opportunity arises.  

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