From 2025 Pandora will use only recycled silver and gold in its jewellery

That eco-friendly drip.

Pandora has announced that from 2025 it will become the first major jewellery brand to stop using newly mined silver and gold in its jewellery and will only buy from recycled sources moving forward.

The decision comes after the jewellery company announced ambitious decarbonisation targets back in January and subsequently joined the Science Based Targets initiative, the leading corporate collaboration for action on climate change, to reduce its emissions across its full value chain.

This move is a mighty one but it’s not out of character. Sustainability and responsible practices have always been part of Pandora’s MO. The Danish company is a member of the Responsible Jewellery Council and a signee of the UN Global Compact, and right now 71 per cent of its silver and gold comes from recycled sources. But according to Pandora’s CEO Alexander Lacik, the standard still needs to be higher.

“The need for sustainable business practices is only becoming more important, and companies must do their part in response to the climate crisis and the depletion of natural resources. For many years, Pandora has used recycled metals in our designs. Now we are ready to take the next step and stop using mined silver and gold altogether,” he says.

As the world’s largest jewellery maker, Pandora’s announcement will have a monumental impact on the environment and the global jewellery market, hopefully forcing other companies to open their doors to a more sustainable future in an industry where it hasn’t been a priority for far too long.

“Silver and gold are beautiful jewellery materials that can be recycled forever without losing their quality. They will never tarnish or decay. We wish to develop a more responsible way of crafting affordable luxury like our jewellery and prevent these fine metals [ending] up in landfill. We want to do our part to build a more circular economy,” says Lacik.

The move will drastically reduce water usage and cut carbon emissions by two thirds for silver and by more than 99 per cent for gold. It will also mitigate mining for virgin metals, which is heavily polluting in practice and damaging to both the physicality and spirituality of natural environments, as we’ve seen locally with mining giant Rio Tinto’s recent destruction of a 46,000 year old sacred Aboriginal site.  

Part of the success of this sustainable shift is ensuring that supply chains are equipped and ready, and Pandora has promised that it will be working with its suppliers to increase the availability of responsibly sourced, recycled and certified metals and to improve production standards as a whole.

au.pandora.net