jesse merle

The Clarity Project was selected as a finalist for the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open, a big social business start-up competition. We wrote a little press release, so I thought I’d pass it on.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, June 1, 2010 — The Clarity Project was selected as a finalist in the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) and will be presenting at Sustainable Brands ’10 on Monday, June 7th in Monterey, California. The SBIO competition is for early stage businesses and seeks to connect new innovative brands from today’s social and eco-entrepreneurs with leading brands and socially responsible investors.

The selection of The Clarity Project is the latest recognition of the creativity and leadership of its three young founders, Shane Rogers, Rachel Lichte, and Jesse Finfrock, and their efforts to harness the unique power of diamonds to improve the quality of life for miners and their communities.

The Clarity Project sells fine diamond jewelry of equal if not superior quality to that of top brands. With a focus on engagement rings and wedding bands, they offer Classic and Artisan styles, custom pieces, and are designing their first Clarity line. Beyond quality, The Clarity Project is unique among jewelry companies by making decisions based on what will most benefit small-scale miners, far outpacing the ineffectual norms of “Conflict Free” established by the Kimberley Process. The founders are committed to building a simple supply chain that ensures fair wages and safe, environmentally sound practices, and to investing the profits from these sales back into mining communities. By doing so, they hope to establish a more equitable exchange of value — in their eyes, a diamond ring is a vehicle for creating a better world, and many forward-thinking consumers are coming to share their vision.

What began a year ago as three childhood friends looking for a personal answer for jewelry, The Clarity Project has come to be recognized as an innovative model by academia and industry alike. In March, Shane was a featured panelist at the Duke Conference on Sustainable Business and Social Impact, and in April, Rachel was a panelist on social responsibility at the Global Social Venture Competition by UC Berkeley and Columbia Business School. Additionally, Jesse has authored numerous trade articles and represented The Clarity Project in the Madison Dialogues, an ongoing jewelry industry discussion group that is developing new standards for fairer diamonds, gems, and metals.

The Clarity Project’s progress stems from the founders’ unwavering commitment to their mission and the miners. Said Rachel, “Our mission is to improve the quality of life for miners and their families, and so every decision we make is based on what we believe will best achieve this.” For instance, they are proud supporters of a women’s diamond digging cooperative in Lesotho, Fair Trade Gold from Latin America, and Fair Made manufacturing in South Africa.

The founders’ honesty and openness is not just critical to fair sourcing, but is key to The Clarity Project’s relationship building, outreach, and sales. As a boutique company, the founders work directly with every customer to inform them of the sources of the diamonds, gems, and metals, as well as the cutting, polishing, and manufacturing of their jewelry. This process allows consumers to make the most informed decisions about their rings and evaluate the impact of their purchases. The founders are also transparent about how The Clarity Project creates impact through the investment of their profits and is launching a quarterly report card detailing their investments and impact.

Ultimately, Shane, Rachel, and Jesse measure the progress of The Clarity Project by the number of children educated, crops planted, and health clinics opened, rather than solely relying on market share and profits. In 2009, the year The Clarity Project began, they were able to procure enough sales to pay for teachers’ salaries at the Muddy Lotus Elementary School in Bongema, Sierra Leone. Considering it costs just $8 a month to send a child to school in Sierra Leone, The Clarity Project’s diamond jewelry can have an enormous impact. This year they hope to contribute to several creative environmental and microfinance programs and partner with new organizations in South Africa.

The selection of The Clarity Project for SBIO is recognition of the founders’ innovative entrepreneurial spirit and the immense potential of their work. Shane notes, “While we are just getting started, The Clarity Project will support many communities for many years, and hopefully serve as a model for new socially responsible businesses.” Together with their loyal and growing customer base, Shane, Rachel, and Jesse are working hard to improve the quality of life for miners and their families while creating a new type of business that can drive positive, long-term change for a sustainable future. The potential is stunning.

Follow The Clarity Project’s progress and stay updated on the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open:
facebook.com/theclarityproject | twitter.com/clarityproject.

The Clarity Project is a fine jewelry social enterprise committed to improving the quality of life for miners and their families. The Clarity Project sources only fair diamonds, gems, and precious metals, and invests all net profits back into mining communities.
(theclarityproject.com)

Contacts:
Shane Rogers
Rachel Lichte
Jesse Finfrock
info@the-clarity-project.com
408.921.1990

Sustainable Brands Innovation Open
sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb10/innovation-open

I’d like to start blogging again. But as most bloggers with day jobs eventually discover, it’s tough to find the time.

Remember that old bumper sticker for musicians with day jobs? At the risk of offending the true professionals*, it could be very well apply to bloggers too…

Real Bloggers Have Day Jobs

Yeah, I like the sound of that.

I do want to start blogging more. But I’d like to rethink the blog a bit. Rather than drifting toward politics — which, while of personal interest to me, clearly I don’t have the time, sources, or audience to be undertaking such an endeavor — I’d like to write on more focused, esoteric, even personal, subject matters. That’s how this blog started out, and I’d like to bring it back around.

So anyway, that’s the goal from here on out. We’ll see…

*All snark aside, I do appreciate the hard work of the likes of Josh, Matt, Kevin, Duncan, Greg, Andrew, Felix, Glenn, and even that little punk Ezra.

Got a new article up on Triple Pundit:

Responsible Jewelry: The Search for Credibility

With the failures of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), as evidenced by ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, pressure is building for mining and jewelry companies to become transparent, accountable, and fair. But will the new certification systems be credible?

At this year’s Fair Trade Diamond Conference in Las Vegas, discussion of competing certification systems was rigorous. At one table sat a representative from the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC); at another sat a representative from the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM). Both organizations are establishing vital new standards for socially responsible—or in ARM’s case Fair Trade—gems and precious metals. But their divergent approaches highlight the importance of involving local stakeholders in creating standards that are effective and credible.

RJC, a participant in the United Nations Global Compact initiative, has nearly completed its standards for certification of large-scale mining operations and is seeking input from civil society mining organizations that promote social and environmental justice. RJC standards would require sensible practices like protecting ecosystem biodiversity and ensuring that “the interests and development aspirations of affected communities are considered.”

Yet several leading NGOs have declined to endorse RJC’s process and operation, describing it as “industry-led and industry-governed.” In a disapproving letter to RJC, civil society organizations, including Earthworks, OxFam, Global Witness, and CAFOD, sight such critical issues as the lack of independent, third-party certification, and the absence of local and community stakeholder involvement . These organizations further caution that RJC “continues to omit key requirements for more responsible mining,” notably:

• Respect for the right of free, prior, and informed consent for indigenous peoples (per ILO 169)
• Community consent for resettlement
• No-go areas for biodiversity conservation
• Protection of natural water bodies from tailings disposal.

ARM offers a different approach than RJC. Working exclusively with artisanal and small-scale mining operations, ARM, together with Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO), is nearing completion of the first Fair Trade standards for gold, and is also requesting consultation from various stakeholders including the public at large. ARM was inspired by the decade-long work of Oro Verde, a small ecologically-oriented gold mine in Colombia whose members actually helped form ARM. Indeed, ARM has integrated small-scale miners fully into the process, including as board members and technical advisors.

ARM’s intimate relationship with the local miners and focus on biodiversity leads to more comprehensive standards. For instance, ARM standards firmly adhere to ILO 169 and require “respect for local cultural practices in order to reach agreements with the local traditional authority and community.” ARM’s standards underwent three rounds of public consultation, included face-to-face workshops and learning sessions at local and global levels, and was posted in four languages on ARM’s website. Furthermore, unlike RJC, ARM is taking a chain-of-custody approach to certification, which means that ARM and FLO will be able to track the gold from mine to market.

The result, as Sonya Maldar, a policy analyst at CAFOD and signatory to the RJC letter, explained in a recent phone conversation, is a more legitimate and effective certification system:

“Consumers [of ARM/FLO certified Fair Trade gold] will be able to trust that the artisanal and small-scale miners were not left out of the process. ARM works directly with small-scale miners to help them organize and set up projects, and FLO is ensuring that the miners receive a premium for their product.”

While the RJC and ARM are not entirely comparable (RJC works with large-scale mines and ARM works with small-scale mines), their approaches can certainly be contrasted. Engaging the local populations, as ARM does, adds significant credibility and legitimacy to their standards—and it’s not going unnoticed. Other large-scale mining certification schemes are following ARM’s lead. RJC competitor, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), has taken a rigorous multi-stakeholder approach in establishing its standards and has earned the support of many of the same NGOs that declined to endorse RJC.

For jewelry and mining companies truly serious about maintaining credibility with consumers, it is critical that their certification standards involve miners at the local level from the very beginning. Credibility can no longer be fabricated—it must be earned.