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Melanie Grant, the new Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council, talks to LUXUS+ in an exclusive interview.
The mission of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) is to promote responsible ethical, social and environmental practices throughout the jewelry supply chain from mine to jeweller’s window. RJC-certified companies are committed to these practices and to transparency in their operations. The materials covered are gold, platinum and diamonds, but the RJC is constantly expanding its scope, which will eventually include silver and colored stones.
LuxusPlus: What has led you to become the new RJC executive director?
Melanie Grant: I’m completely different from the ED’s who have done before as a writer, curator and as a black woman so I think I represent a new era creatively and in terms of the industry. I feel I’ve been lucky to have had a multi-hyphenate career – working as a stylist, art director and as a writer. At one point I owned and ran my own creative agency before freelancing at The Economist where I went for a day and ended up staying for 16 years overseeing watch and jewellery content. I loved creating beauty with meaning there and learning from such an array of intellectually rigorous journalists. I started writing about ten years ago at The Economist where a coterie of strong women took me under their collective wing and when my book Coveted: Art & Innovation in High Jewellery* came out in 2020 (ndlr Editions PHAIDON), I began curating which happened naturally. This summer I’ve curated the contemporary jewellery section of the exhibition ‘Crown to Couture’ at Kensington Palace which examines the parallels between the Georgian Court and modern-day red carpet. The RJC for me is another type of expansion because it involves approaching jewellery in new and interesting ways and I live to learn.
LP: You are currently revising the CoC (Chain of Custody). Can you tell us more? What are the objectives?
M.G: We strive for continual progression at the RJC in line with the evolution of the market and in society so everything we offer continues to move forward. The objective is always to offer the highest level of standards across the entire supply chain. As a demonstration of that we are launching our ESG toolkit on 23rd of June at our inaugural responsible jewellery summit in conjunction with Harvard and the GIA.
LP: In 2019, the RJC announced it would extend its services to the precious coloured stones, and in a next step, to the semi-precious. So where do we stand today in the implementation of the project?
M.G: It’s ongoing. The RJC is continuing the research it started in 2019 but which was unfortunately put on hold due to covid into the to audit of coloured gemstones. We have no launch dates to share at present.
LP: How do you collaborate with Watch and Jewellery Initiative? I mean how are you complementary and not competitors since it seems we have some duplications here?
M.G: The Watch and Jewellery Initiative was initially created by the RJC and we support them in their goals to improve the industry. I think there is room for everyone to do their bit as creating improvement isn’t a competition and not anything one single person or entity can achieve alone.
LP: Should the LGD production be better controlled?
M.G: When RJC launches its LGMS (Laboratory Grown Materials Standard), we will invite lab grown companies to join the organization as members and participate in the certification process, establishing a trusted reference for responsible practices across the jewellery supply chain. The term ‘sustainable’ without a formal recognised standard cannot be measured as there are numerous definitions of sustainable that exist for Lab Grown.
It is important to state that mining and manufacturing have different environmental impacts. Different practices are needed when it comes to post-mining or post-manufacturing rehabilitation. It’s important for all companies to demonstrate their understanding of the full environmental lifecycle of their activities and actively reduce or remediate any harm in the processes whether mining natural diamonds or creating Lab Grown to help protect the environment. So yes, LGD production should have an LGM standard as Natural Diamonds do, to give the industry and consumer more knowledge in how LGD are created and then consumed.
LP: What is your view for the future of the RJC? What specifically do you want to investigate?
M.G: Since I’ve been here, I’ve been taken aback by how many experienced and knowledgeable industry figures have said how important the RJC is within the jewellery industry. It provides the bedrock of standards, a foundation giving practical support, education, and guidance to those who want to do better. There are some things we can’t and don’t do, however. We aren’t a police force, and we don’t have the power to make companies act but as more and more consumers and collectors ask for traceability we will continue to evolve and adapt with the market. For example, we opened public consultation last year as a first step to creating standards for lab-grown diamonds. It’s important that everyone in our industry abides by a global unified standard and that consumers are confident about that.
I would love to see us learn from and communicate with other industries such as the Fashion industry who I think are navigating the sustainable space with gusto and also the art world. I recently joined the board of ISEAL who have the fishing industry and textiles among others on their board and I can’t wait to understand how they are navigating their own challenges. Governments are also key partners so we can impress on them the need for any legislation to allow the business of jewelry to thrive and we will continue to have those conversations. I think we have great potential to extend the idea of who we are beyond the watch and Jewelry industry to the wider world and I’m excited by that.
LP: What is most challenging you today? What are / will be the key obstacles? Can you explain why?
M.G: The war in Ukraine has been our biggest issue to date on a governance, government and also a people level. It continues to devastate millions of people on the ground but also in the rest of the world in different ways. In response we have updated our membership agreement, commissioned a taskforce to look at our governance and we are adjusting our Articles of Association, details of which will be shared and voted on by members at the upcoming Annual General Meeting on the 9th of June 2023. This war as an unprecedented event shook the RJC to the core and we weren’t prepared for it but we’re evolving and we’re learning. Most of the members who left came back a few weeks later which is great. My hope is that we can move forward together as an industry and heal because jewellery really needs us to work together.
Read also > Interview: Andrea Ferraresi (Ducati) talks about the new Diavel V4
Featured photo : © Presse[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row njt-role=”not-logged-in”][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Melanie Grant, the new Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council, talks to LUXUS+ in an exclusive interview.
The mission of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) is to promote responsible ethical, social and environmental practices throughout the jewelry supply chain from mine to jeweller’s window. RJC-certified companies are committed to these practices and to transparency in their operations. The materials covered are gold, platinum and diamonds, but the RJC is constantly expanding its scope, which will eventually include silver and colored stones.
LuxusPlus: What has led you to become the new RJC executive director?
Melanie Grant: I’m completely different from the ED’s who have done before as a writer, curator and as a black woman so I think I represent a new era creatively and in terms of the industry. I feel I’ve been lucky to have had a multi-hyphenate career – working as a stylist, art director and as a writer. At one point I owned and ran my own creative agency before freelancing at The Economist where I went for a day and ended up staying for 16 years overseeing watch and jewellery content. I loved creating beauty with meaning there and learning from such an array of intellectually rigorous journalists. I started writing about ten years ago at The Economist where a coterie of strong women took me under their collective wing and when my book Coveted: Art & Innovation in High Jewellery* came out in 2020 (ndlr Editions PHAIDON), I began curating which happened naturally. This summer I’ve curated the contemporary jewellery section of the exhibition ‘Crown to Couture’ at Kensington Palace which examines the parallels between the Georgian Court and modern-day red carpet. The RJC for me is another type of expansion because it involves approaching jewellery in new and interesting ways and I live to learn.
LP: You are currently revising the CoC (Chain of Custody). Can you tell us more? What are the objectives?
M.G: We strive for continual progression at the RJC in line with the evolution of the market and in society so everything we offer continues to move forward. The objective is always to offer the highest level of standards across the entire supply chain. As a demonstration of that we are launching our ESG toolkit on 23rd of June at our inaugural responsible jewellery summit in conjunction with Harvard and the GIA.
LP: In 2019, the RJC announced it would extend its services to the precious coloured stones, and in a next step, to the semi-precious. So where do we stand today in the implementation of the project?
M.G: It’s ongoing. The RJC is continuing the research it started in 2019 but which was unfortunately put on hold due to covid into the to audit of coloured gemstones. We have no launch dates to share at present.
LP: How do you collaborate with Watch and Jewellery Initiative? I mean how are you complementary and not competitors since it seems we have some duplications here?
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Melanie Grant, the new Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council, talks to LUXUS+ in an exclusive interview.
The mission of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) is to promote responsible ethical, social and environmental practices throughout the jewelry supply chain from mine to jeweller’s window. RJC-certified companies are committed to these practices and to transparency in their operations. The materials covered are gold, platinum and diamonds, but the RJC is constantly expanding its scope, which will eventually include silver and colored stones.
LuxusPlus: What has led you to become the new RJC executive director?
Melanie Grant: I’m completely different from the ED’s who have done before as a writer, curator and as a black woman so I think I represent a new era creatively and in terms of the industry. I feel I’ve been lucky to have had a multi-hyphenate career – working as a stylist, art director and as a writer. At one point I owned and ran my own creative agency before freelancing at The Economist where I went for a day and ended up staying for 16 years overseeing watch and jewellery content. I loved creating beauty with meaning there and learning from such an array of intellectually rigorous journalists. I started writing about ten years ago at The Economist where a coterie of strong women took me under their collective wing and when my book Coveted: Art & Innovation in High Jewellery* came out in 2020 (ndlr Editions PHAIDON), I began curating which happened naturally. This summer I’ve curated the contemporary jewellery section of the exhibition ‘Crown to Couture’ at Kensington Palace which examines the parallels between the Georgian Court and modern-day red carpet. The RJC for me is another type of expansion because it involves approaching jewellery in new and interesting ways and I live to learn.
LP: You are currently revising the CoC (Chain of Custody). Can you tell us more? What are the objectives?
M.G: We strive for continual progression at the RJC in line with the evolution of the market and in society so everything we offer continues to move forward. The objective is always to offer the highest level of standards across the entire supply chain. As a demonstration of that we are launching our ESG toolkit on 23rd of June at our inaugural responsible jewellery summit in conjunction with Harvard and the GIA.
LP: In 2019, the RJC announced it would extend its services to the precious coloured stones, and in a next step, to the semi-precious. So where do we stand today in the implementation of the project?
M.G: It’s ongoing. The RJC is continuing the research it started in 2019 but which was unfortunately put on hold due to covid into the to audit of coloured gemstones. We have no launch dates to share at present.
LP: How do you collaborate with Watch and Jewellery Initiative? I mean how are you complementary and not competitors since it seems we have some duplications here?
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