Purvi Shah, who became executive director of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) in early February, spoke to JCK yesterday, her first media interview in her new job. We talked about how the RJC might expand, whether the group is meant primarily for big players, and how its lab-grown standard is doing.
Tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to the Responsible Jewellery Council.
I worked 17 years at De Beers. Through that time, I worked really closely with the RJC. For the last six or seven years, I chaired the standards committee. I was on the board as well. I know the organization very well and was part of helping to shape it.
It just felt like the right thing at the right time. The RJC is personally a passion. The whole jewelry industry is a passion area for me.
Do you have any particular plans for the organization?
I am in my listening and learning phase, because while I’ve worked with the organization a long time, it’s really different to step inside of it and understand the operational side of it. Listening to what our members want and need is fundamental.
We will obviously look at where are we going to expand our scope into other materials. That’s a key thing on our radar.
What materials aren’t covered right now?
Currently, what is covered is diamonds, gold, silver, platinum group metals, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and laboratory-grown materials. The considerations we have to make are: When are we going across all colored gemstones? How and when would we do that? Pearls, jade—there’s all kinds of things that are used in jewelry.
The RJC takes a very thoughtful approach to understanding those supply chains and value chains. What is unique about the RJC is that it covers everything from mine to retail. Many other schemes like this often just cover one part of the value chain. Our approach is really collaborative. We engage with our membership to understand the complexities and how we are going to build things that are not just raising the bar, but also practical.
We sometimes hear that the RJC is mostly for big companies, like De Beers and Signet. Not that many small U.S. retailers belong to the RJC.
Great points. Firstly, we’ve got over 2,000 members. Globally, our key markets are the U.S., India, Italy, France—Europe basically. We’re seeing really good growth in places like Thailand, which is really amazing.
Eighty-five percent of our members are in our lowest-fee-paying membership space. That’s quite a lot. We have got a lot of small- and medium-sized enterprises. Of course, the RJC would not have existed without its founding members—many of which are big players, like De Beers and Signet and many others. A lot of them have also helped drive the adoption of the RJC through their sourcing policies. Now, 20 years in, we’re looking at how can we scale into other areas.
I totally agree that our expansion into the retail space has been limited. I don’t think we’ve done much to proactively drive that. This is one area we’re really looking at carefully. Obviously, the U.S. makes a lot of sense as a place to start, and it looks like there’s some demand there.
If you look at the value proposition, it’s often about providing credentials to your customer. We have not been really focused on providing consumer-facing information and marketing. And we want to look at that, but we want to do it in a manner that makes sense.
We’re going to stress-test it. We want to research it. We need some deep understanding and work with our prospective members.
Some small jewelers say the audit process required for membership is too onerous.
That’s one of the biggest misconceptions. If you look at our standards, it’s a lot, because it covers the whole value chain. But if you start talking to people who’ve gone through the process, often their feedback is: It was really not as hard as we thought it would be. We want to get that message out, and there’s obviously opportunities to make things a little bit easier for our members.
I know the first time going through [the audit process] can be overwhelming, but that’s true of the first time you do anything. Most businesses probably already have a lot of those requirements already in place. All the RJC does is help you improve and review your systems and processes.
What makes the RJC so unique is that we are not just putting out a standard and giving a tool kit or guidance, we are actually supporting an assessment process that’s allowing people to be certified by a third party. That’s really valuable. It does take some effort, though it’s probably not as bad as people think.
A few years back, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there was a big controversy over Alrosa’s RJC membership. Do you have any way to deal with something like that if it happens in the future?
The organization has reviewed all its mechanisms within its articles and its governance frameworks. Those have all been really substantially uplifted over the last three years, and if there is a situation where we find that a member has been sanctioned, for example, we are able to react and respond immediately.
The RJC introduced a Laboratory Grown Material Standard last year. Are lab-grown companies responding to that?
We need to do a little bit more outreach to get laboratory-grown producers to join. There’s a few in the pipeline coming in. I’m sure that there will be some interest, though that space is evolving a lot. A lot [of lab-grown diamonds] used to be produced in the U.S. The geographic footprint of production has changed very quickly,
Do you agree with industry members who say consumers are perhaps less interested in sustainability than they used to be?
Our industry, which sells luxury products at high value, is based on trust—within the industry itself but also when we’re dealing with consumers. The RJC builds trust. I also think, across society, there’s expectations. In certain jurisdictions, there is much more focus on [social governance issues], and the RJC can play a role in helping businesses meet those requirements and [can] prevent a lot of duplication of effort with audits.
Do you think, for example, that RJC’s chain-of-custody standard could help people who are subject to sanctions against Russian diamonds?
We have launched our traceability guidance and we’re working on a tool kit, shaping it with all industry players, which should be out before Q3. I’ve seen that the EU came out with something quite different than the U.S. in December. So there’s also a bit of bifurcation going around expectations, even from the G7. The EU has said that you need management systems and auditable frameworks behind your traceability claims. What we are building could be a very good helpful point for the industry to assess against those standards and expectations, of the EU in particular but also more broadly.
Anything else you want people to know?
RJC is in a strong place and it’s really well perceived. We have a lot of people wanting to be involved. That’s what we really like to see. We want to have a voice for everybody, not just the big players but also the smaller ones. We want to be a convener for the industry to shape responsible practices in the jewelry industry together.
(Photo courtesy of the Responsible Jewellery Council)