Is Your Gold Really Ethical? A NZ Buyer's Guide

When we first started making wedding rings almost 20 years ago, no one even thought to ask about where their gold was sourced. People were starting to know about blood diamonds and all the ways they were terrible, but no one considered gold. Buying a wedding ring is a significant moment, you will wear it everyday for the rest of your life and probably hand it down through the generations. It's important that it reflect your values.

Many jewellery companies have recognised that ethics and sustainability are important to couples and have made moves to accommodate these wishes. Which is excellent. Traditionally mined gold is one of the most dangerous and deadly forms of mining that exists. It's dirty business. The US Mint buys drug cartel gold. And this article from Stuff about Russian Conflict Gold shows how gold is used as a way to get around sanctions.

In general, when jewellery companies use "ethical" or "sustainable" to describe the metal they're using, they are probably using one of the following metal sources:

• Recycled Gold
• Fairmined Gold
• Alluvial Gold
• Certified by The Responsible Jewellery Council