When my wife and I first started talking about marriage years ago, she was having a hard time with the idea that a diamond was a. necessary and b. ecologically insensitive. She has heard the horror stories about diamond mining and how the people that get them to the big diamond companies are barely paid slave wages to do so. We did look around for better alternatives, but we were not able to find anything that was both good looking and would be a responsible purchase. We did manage to find a diamond that was not from a big mining company and ended up making our purchase there. Although it was not ecologically perfect, it was the best that we could do at the time. But times have changed now, with more people looking into alternatives to diamonds and regular old jewelry.

When I started looking for more information on alternatives for this post, I came across a company called greenKarat that promotes the use of recycled gold, silver, platinum and titanium along with unaltered and/or synthetic diamonds. While they do not claim to be perfect, they are doing the best they can while still competing with the big guns in this multi billion dollar industry. From their site:

- We use eco-labeling to inform consumers about green certification.
- We believe Fair Trade is good for the environment.
- We applaud ecological gold initiatives.
- We believe in recycling and offer jewelry made from recycled precious metals.
- We oppose diamond mining.
- We believe that process ethics become embedded in the end product.

They are a member of 1% For The Planet, so they also donate 1% of their profits to environmental projects around the world, along with the work they are doing for the jewelry market. Although we did not find them when we were buying our wedding rings, I really wish we had, as we would have bought something from them or another like-minded company in a heartbeat. It just makes sense. So if you are about to buy jewelry for someone or about to buy an engagement or wedding rings, you should look into buying ecologically and socially responsible jewelry from a company like this. I sure wish we had, and I will be sure to look for responsible companies the next time I buy some precious metals of any kind. A gleaming shiny perfect diamond or a perfect titanium ring should not be worth the sacrifice of human comfort and sustainability in faraway lands…

technorati: ecologically, responsible , jewelry

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