FAIR TRADE JEWELLERY COMPANY LTD.

We started back in 2006 with a simple question: where did the gold we used in our jewellery come from?Being able to answer that question both for ourselves and our clients became a bit of a mission which, end the end, led to certifications from Fairtrade, Fairmined, the Responsible Jewellery Council and BCorporation (amongst others). But that's skipping ahead.  That question led us to a small group of artisnal miners in Colombia from whom we started purchasing gold which they had sustainably mined.And as the Fairtrade standard for gold was in it's infancy, our co-founder Ryan Taylor travelled to Colombia with a documentary filmmaker to record the lives and work of these community miners.  The resulting documentary, The Last Goldrush, can be seen below.  Fast forward to February 2011 and on Valentine's day Fairtrade/Fairmined gold was launched internationally with our company as the first in North America to be working with this gold.  Today, we are probably one of the most certified jewellery companies in the world.  And we design, manufacture, retail and wholesale our work all over the world.  For us, the use of certified gold (be it Fairtrade/Fairmined or recycled) and ethical diamonds that are mined, cut and polished here in Canada is part of our DNA.  But so is a classic European design aesthetic--our goal is the make the best designs using the best materials and seem to hit that goal pretty consistently.  We're kind of like 'Patagonia for jewellery.'