Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) joins 11 other ISEAL Full Members, including the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, Fairtrade International, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, and UTZ Certified.
Sustainability standards are one of the most innovative tools to transform practices in sectors as diverse as agriculture, fishing, forestry and the jewellery sector. The organisations that have achieved ISEAL membership are among the most credible standards globally due to their adherence to ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice. ISEAL’s Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards, with which all full members comply, has become the global reference for high-quality standard-setting. A set of Credibility Principles (currently in conultation) have been drafted to articulate the values that underlie ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice.
Since it was established in 2005, RJC has worked in the jewellery supply chain to promote responsible business practices, and has developed and grown a successful certification system for the sector. RJC’s Code of Practices covers a very wide range of sustainability issues, including human rights and labour standards, environmental management, impacts of mining, and business ethics. RJC's Chain-of-Custody standard, launched this year, extends these concerns into a platform for responsible sourcing for gold and platinum group metals.
“RJC is very proud to have achieved full ISEAL membership, as part of a new generation of standards addressing sectors outside of agriculture with business-relevant approaches. Through our journey to ISEAL full membership, RJC’s multi-stakeholder standards-setting procedures have been found to be credible, robust and transparent. We are now working with other ISEAL members and stakeholders on evaluating our impact and scaling up the use of certification standards as tools for achieving sustainable development”, says Matt Runci, RJC’s Chairman.
“We much welcome the membership of RJC to ISEAL and its commitment to the ISEAL Codes of Good Practice. Inclusion of RJC in ISEAL represents a new and important sector in which credible standards such as those developed by RJC can greatly contribute to sustainable development. Through their full membership in ISEAL, RJC will be able to work with established and emerging standards to coordinate efforts, ensure effectiveness and scale up their social and environmental impacts. We look forward to working closely with them in the years to come,” says Rik Kutsch Lojenga, Board Chair, ISEAL.
To find out more about the Responsible Jewellery Council click here.
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