Taking The Trade To New Dimensions
Cibjo on corporate social responsibility.
Jacques Voorhees
Founder & President - Polygon.net takes on CIBJO
Founder & President - Polygon.net takes on CIBJO
Last week I returned from the annual CIBJO Congress held this year in Dubai. Never heard of CIBJO? Many have not, yet that’s changing. CIBJO (the acronym derives from a complex French name) these days goes by the simple tagline World Jewelry Confederation, and is best described as the United Nations of the jewelry industry. The delegates to CIBJO are the heads of jewelry trade associations from around the world representing over 40 countries. U.S. delegates are people like Matt Runci, head of JA, Doug Hucker, head of AGTA, and Cecilia Gardner, head of JVC. But equally represented at CIBJO are the Lithuanian Jewelers Association (yes, there is one), the Diamond Council of South Africa, the Hong Kong Jewelry Manufacturers Association, and the National Association of Goldsmiths from the UK, to name just a few. Multi-national entities like DTC, ICA, and World Federation of Diamond Bourses have representatives there as well. The mission of CIBJO has traditionally been a body that agrees on standards. For example, when can you consider a diamond to be a full carat? Is a 99 pointer sufficient? Obviously not. How about a 99.9 pointer? Or a 99.99999 pointer? That’s the kind of thing CIJBO committees focus on and again traditionally it’s been pretty dry stuff.
No longer. Under the colorful and inspiring leadership of Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO is rapidly increasing its profile, the scope of its activities, and even its mission.
These days, an attendee at a CIBJO Congress might get the impression that the primary thing the delegates are focused on is consumer confidence and Corporate Social Responsibility. In fact, go to most any large jewelry industry event, and you’ll find Corporate Social Responsibility is near the top, or at the top, of the agenda. I’m old enough to remember the days when trade gatherings focused on topics like competition from the Internet, changes in the supply chain, and shrinking profit margins. No more. Corporate Social Responsibility is now King.
In Dubai, speaker after speaker told us how consumer confidence and Corporate Social Responsibility were going to be the big challenges for the industry in the coming years. Consumers are no longer focused on merely selection and value, we are told. Increasingly they want to be confident that the products are ethically sourced, and the companies they are buying from are socially responsible.
Perhaps. I’ve yet to see a groundswell of consumer attention on this issue. My sense is that buyers at retail are still more likely to ask "How much below Rap for this diamond?" than they are to say "What can you tell me about the pay and conditions of the workers where this stone was mined?" Yet maybe I’m wrong, or perhaps the trend is just around the corner and we need to prepare for it now.
My concern is not the movement towards being good corporate citizens. We all should aspire to that. My concern is the law of unintended consequences. Buzz phrases like "Ethical Sourcing," "Fair Trade," and "Corporate Social Responsibility" sound good in the abstract (who can be against "ethical sourcing?") but a whole herd of devils are hiding inside the details. Here are some examples.
At CIBJO a United Nations ECOSOC representative spoke to the importance of boycotting Burma rubies, because of the oppressive policies of the military junta running the country. Andrew Cody, president of ICA (International Colored-Gemstone Association) stood up and asked: "The Burmese boycott is threatening a hundred thousand gemstone miners with death from starvation. Why, exactly, is that a good thing for us to be pursuing?" The conversation got lively after that statement.
I’m one of a relatively small group of people from the industry fortunate to have actually visited the amputee camp in Freetown, Sierra Leone, talked to the amputees who lost their limbs during the war, and heard their opinions one on one. They don’t blame the diamond industry for what happened, and in fact find the Kimberly Process puzzling. They blame the warlords, and are grateful the world finally did the right thing. The right thing was not boycotting Sierra Leone diamonds, but sending in a modern army and overthrowing the warlords.
Visit the alluvial diamond mines in the Kenama and Bo areas of Sierra Leone and talk to the workers who toil twelve hours a day in unspeakably-harsh conditions, in return for which they receive a small bag of rice each evening, to feed their families. I did. Are they angry at their employers for this treatment? Hardly. Their beef is the illegal Liberians sneaking across the southern border and stealing these great jobs in the diamond fields. I heard this echoed a few days later when I spoke to the head of the Sierra Leone Indigenous Miners Movement (SLIMM), who explained that pay and conditions weren’t the problem. The problem was the illegal Liberians. (Perhaps I should call them "undocumented?" ) To a Sierra Leone diamond miner, apparently, the best thing the world community could do would be to build a 500 mile fence along their southern border.
In Kenya in 1998 and in Nepal in 2003, I saw firsthand the effect of boycotts. Boycotts result in starvation for those at the bottom of the economic ladder: starvation for those we may think we are helping.
Then there’s the well-known tragedy of the Nike factory in Pakistan. Bowing to pressure that they were operating sweatshops, Nike closed the factory. Women who had been earning-by their standards-a good living were forced to turn to prostitution to stay alive and feed their children. Forced prostitution in place of factory jobs, courtesy of Western activists. Is that our idea of "Fair Trade?"
Let me be clear. The problem is not the desire of individuals and organizations within our industry to "do good" and "act responsibly." That desire is noble, whether it matters to the consumer or not. (More noble, actually, the less it matters.) The problem is effectively translating those ambiguous phrases into outcomes that actually are good, and that actually are responsible.
Perhaps in striving for the loftiest of goals-helping improve the conditions for gemstone miners around the world-we miss more realistic and effective things we could be doing closer to home. Forget, for a moment, those we buy from overseas. How are we treating our own employees? For that matter, how are we treating our customers? The wealthy socialite buying jewelry in Dallas is hardly more deserving of compassion than those gemstone miners in Sierra Leone. But that wealthy socialite is, ultimately, the one putting rice into the mouths of those miners’ families. The more dollars she spends, the more miners are able to feed their children. Ultimately, are we more effective, more socially responsible, by looking upstream at our sources, or downstream to focus on customer satisfaction? If "ethical sourcing" throws a hundred thousand gemstone miners in Burma out of work, is that really ethical? Is it possible that customer satisfaction with the experience of buying jewelry is the "consumer confidence" that matters most, at least to those at the harshest end of the supply chain, struggling daily for survival?
I don’t have the answers here. Like Andrew Cody, I can only raise the questions. Of one thing I am sure: as with CIBJO, this issue will increasingly be occupying the jewelry industry’s attention for many years. Stay tuned.
No longer. Under the colorful and inspiring leadership of Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO is rapidly increasing its profile, the scope of its activities, and even its mission.
These days, an attendee at a CIBJO Congress might get the impression that the primary thing the delegates are focused on is consumer confidence and Corporate Social Responsibility. In fact, go to most any large jewelry industry event, and you’ll find Corporate Social Responsibility is near the top, or at the top, of the agenda. I’m old enough to remember the days when trade gatherings focused on topics like competition from the Internet, changes in the supply chain, and shrinking profit margins. No more. Corporate Social Responsibility is now King.
In Dubai, speaker after speaker told us how consumer confidence and Corporate Social Responsibility were going to be the big challenges for the industry in the coming years. Consumers are no longer focused on merely selection and value, we are told. Increasingly they want to be confident that the products are ethically sourced, and the companies they are buying from are socially responsible.
Perhaps. I’ve yet to see a groundswell of consumer attention on this issue. My sense is that buyers at retail are still more likely to ask "How much below Rap for this diamond?" than they are to say "What can you tell me about the pay and conditions of the workers where this stone was mined?" Yet maybe I’m wrong, or perhaps the trend is just around the corner and we need to prepare for it now.
My concern is not the movement towards being good corporate citizens. We all should aspire to that. My concern is the law of unintended consequences. Buzz phrases like "Ethical Sourcing," "Fair Trade," and "Corporate Social Responsibility" sound good in the abstract (who can be against "ethical sourcing?") but a whole herd of devils are hiding inside the details. Here are some examples.
At CIBJO a United Nations ECOSOC representative spoke to the importance of boycotting Burma rubies, because of the oppressive policies of the military junta running the country. Andrew Cody, president of ICA (International Colored-Gemstone Association) stood up and asked: "The Burmese boycott is threatening a hundred thousand gemstone miners with death from starvation. Why, exactly, is that a good thing for us to be pursuing?" The conversation got lively after that statement.
I’m one of a relatively small group of people from the industry fortunate to have actually visited the amputee camp in Freetown, Sierra Leone, talked to the amputees who lost their limbs during the war, and heard their opinions one on one. They don’t blame the diamond industry for what happened, and in fact find the Kimberly Process puzzling. They blame the warlords, and are grateful the world finally did the right thing. The right thing was not boycotting Sierra Leone diamonds, but sending in a modern army and overthrowing the warlords.
Visit the alluvial diamond mines in the Kenama and Bo areas of Sierra Leone and talk to the workers who toil twelve hours a day in unspeakably-harsh conditions, in return for which they receive a small bag of rice each evening, to feed their families. I did. Are they angry at their employers for this treatment? Hardly. Their beef is the illegal Liberians sneaking across the southern border and stealing these great jobs in the diamond fields. I heard this echoed a few days later when I spoke to the head of the Sierra Leone Indigenous Miners Movement (SLIMM), who explained that pay and conditions weren’t the problem. The problem was the illegal Liberians. (Perhaps I should call them "undocumented?" ) To a Sierra Leone diamond miner, apparently, the best thing the world community could do would be to build a 500 mile fence along their southern border.
In Kenya in 1998 and in Nepal in 2003, I saw firsthand the effect of boycotts. Boycotts result in starvation for those at the bottom of the economic ladder: starvation for those we may think we are helping.
Then there’s the well-known tragedy of the Nike factory in Pakistan. Bowing to pressure that they were operating sweatshops, Nike closed the factory. Women who had been earning-by their standards-a good living were forced to turn to prostitution to stay alive and feed their children. Forced prostitution in place of factory jobs, courtesy of Western activists. Is that our idea of "Fair Trade?"
Let me be clear. The problem is not the desire of individuals and organizations within our industry to "do good" and "act responsibly." That desire is noble, whether it matters to the consumer or not. (More noble, actually, the less it matters.) The problem is effectively translating those ambiguous phrases into outcomes that actually are good, and that actually are responsible.
Perhaps in striving for the loftiest of goals-helping improve the conditions for gemstone miners around the world-we miss more realistic and effective things we could be doing closer to home. Forget, for a moment, those we buy from overseas. How are we treating our own employees? For that matter, how are we treating our customers? The wealthy socialite buying jewelry in Dallas is hardly more deserving of compassion than those gemstone miners in Sierra Leone. But that wealthy socialite is, ultimately, the one putting rice into the mouths of those miners’ families. The more dollars she spends, the more miners are able to feed their children. Ultimately, are we more effective, more socially responsible, by looking upstream at our sources, or downstream to focus on customer satisfaction? If "ethical sourcing" throws a hundred thousand gemstone miners in Burma out of work, is that really ethical? Is it possible that customer satisfaction with the experience of buying jewelry is the "consumer confidence" that matters most, at least to those at the harshest end of the supply chain, struggling daily for survival?
I don’t have the answers here. Like Andrew Cody, I can only raise the questions. Of one thing I am sure: as with CIBJO, this issue will increasingly be occupying the jewelry industry’s attention for many years. Stay tuned.
