La Jewellery Ethical Policy faqs

See current answers to questions about our Ethical Policy. If you don’t find the answer you are looking for, open a ticket on our Customer Support Portal

La Jewellery Ethical Policy

La Jewellery: Treating our suppliers, customers and co-workers fairly and respecting the environment

We believe in unique

We are committed to creating beautiful, truly hand crafted items of jewellery. We aim to combine affordable and exclusive supplying artisan-designed hand-finished jewellery which our customers love and cherish at a price they can afford to pay.

We work with our retail distributors

We sell our jewellery directly through our own showroom and mail order and also wholesale, mainly to boutiques and small chains. Most of our wholesale customers some retail customers are known to us personally and several have become friends. We seek to go beyond what is necessary to achieve customer satisfaction. If for any reason we fail in any way we will quickly seek to resolve any difficulties that may arise to the satisfaction of all parties.

Partnering with charities and causes

Many of our collections are inspired by causes we believe in and wish to support both morally and financially. Purchasing one of these items will result in a charitable donation to the charity concerned. A number of charities are also members of our affiliate scheme so if you found us by following a link from a charity website to one of our products they will be in receipt of a small payment from us as a thank you for the sale

Treating co-workers and suppliers fairly

We believe that fair payment for goods and work done should be an active policy so we pay everyone we employ at least the living wage to everyone we contract or employ directly and a fair rate for any items we buy in. Our co-workers and suppliers are our lifeblood. We gold them in great esteem and treat them with respect.

Ours, and your environment

We operate an environmental policy which commits us to use materials and methods which have as little impact on the earth as we can achieve. Jewellery design relies on the extraction of raw materials from the earth and hence there is always a potential conflict between the environmental causes we promote and producing an item from semi-precious metal and scarce stones. We go to great lengths to research all aspects of production of our suppliers to ensure that once goods are in our supply chain they meet stringent environmental guidelines. We favour suppliers which share our beliefs and attitudes and sometimes that means we must pay more for the goods and services we buy…

We believe in you, thanks for being here…

An ethical and environmental commitment does not mean unaffordable and it certainly does not mean inferior. Our commitment it to superb design, ethical production methods and superb packaging of our products delivered by a staff that care for our customers. We hope you like our products and the service you receive.

We strive always to better our working practices and methods and we will continue to do so and we are encouraged to think that the larger we grow, the more good we can do. Each piece of jewellery is designed to last a lifetime and beyond – to be a treasured family heirloom, with a timeless feel.

standard packaging

More questions or not answered your query in full?

If you have any more questions on this and any other issue we will be happy to answer them through our FAQs or in person.

View the complete list of FAQs on our customer support portal

We deal with support and email enquiries 7-days a week and endeavour to resolve them within one business day. Please check our customer support portal if you have a question or any issue you need resolving. Most queries will have already been answered but if they have not you can submit a support ticket through the portal.

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La Jewellery Ethical Silver Sourcing

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Silver Sourcing, Ethics and Sustainable Development

We believe very strongly in not just talking about sustainability, ‘treading lightly’ on the land and about taking responsibility for our environment and our future, but in demonstrating to our customers that our materials are ethically sourced and our methods are as ‘green’ as we can make them wherever this is possible. We believe in being honest and accountable and obviously, given the nature of our business, where we source the silver we use is foremost in that accountability.

Our casting silver is sourced from a bullion dealer which holds as its maxim, the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, where sustainable development is defined as, “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

We couldn’t agree more, which is why we choose to obtain our casting silver from a source which ranks quality and innovation as vital for sustainability.

In addition, the company we use has a strong track-record and ethic in recycling. Silver, as well as other metals, is reclaimed from sources where it is a by-product of one of several other industrial processes. The metal is reclaimed, recycled and refined to be used by us and other businesses committed to the future.

Our silver wire and sheet is obtained from a different source, a bullion dealer whose silver comes from all over the world. We are aware that this takes up air miles, but at present, it is the only source we know of for these types and forms of silver. To lessen the impact of this, we collect our scrap silver and send it to be recycled so that at least when it gets to us, the silver will be made use of in the most efficient way possible, with as little waste as we can possibly manage.

We have never taken the easy way out. We research and locate sources we can trust and we are taking steps to make sure we do all we can to get the most from our silver, including recycling and using innovative techniques and methods of production.

Having done so, we can pass the knowledge on to our customers that not only will you receive from us something beautiful, but something which has the least impact on our precious planet that we can possibly manage.

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Notes on sourcing from our bullion dealers

Identification of Silver Sources

From the perspective of a supplier of semi-manufactured Silver materials used in the production and sale of Silver Jewellery and Silverware our understanding of the generic supply chain of Silver is as follows:

Mine → Refinery → Alloy Manufacturer → Manufacturing Jeweller → Retailer → Customer

As an Alloy Manufacturers stockholder we hold a variety of Alloyed Silver items such as Wire, Sheet, Tube, Casting Grain and Solder which are purchased from 2 or 3 major European manufacturing companies.

The factories from which we purchase need Fine Silver as a raw starting material and they source Fine Silver from a variety of European refineries. The Fine Silver is supplied from the refinery in a physical form appropriate to the demands of the manufacturing operation. Once received at the manufacturing factory the Fine Silver is generally melted and alloyed with Copper to produce the Sterling and Britannia Silver Alloys suitable for UK Hallmarking and then further processed into the semi-manufactured products which we purchase and hold in stock.

Our understanding is that the Refining processes undertaken by the various Refineries involves a whole variety of different types of Silver including new mine production and Scrap material produced as a result of a wide range of Industrial and Chemical processes. The essence of the refining process is to take in a diverse range of Silver containing substances and to produce a fully refined and standardised Fine Silver end-product.

Within the various phases of the supply chain the recycling of Silver waste and scrap products is undertaken at all times.

As an example the manufacturing company may convert a delivery of Fine Silver into Sterling Silver by the addition of Copper and then fabricate this new alloy into a Sheet product. In the course of Sheet production some scrap will be generated and this can be immediately recycled into the production of Casting Grain. In this sense the Casting Grain produced is 100% recycled.

As will be seen from the brief description above the supply route from mine to consumer is rather complex as at virtually every stage it involves the introduction of recycled Silver Scrap which means that from the viewpoint of the manufacturer it is not possible to identify the original source of the Silver contained in any one product with the possible exception of the example of the Casting Grain product as outlined above.

Hallmarking and the law

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All appropriate items are hallmarked in our Birmingham ASSAY office and contain a date stamp.

 

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A note about La Jewellery casting

Some of our jewellery needs a symmetrical counterpart so we use a casting company to ensure aesthetical quality.

In the past we have carried out all the casting in the art studio by hand but this became too expensive and made some items unaffordable.

After many months of research we have selected a fine casting company t undertake the work on our behalf. We now use a small family-run business to cast some items we design, with skills which have been pass]ed on from grandfather, to father, to son and which employ a small workforce.

The company is renowned throughout the world for the quality of their work for leading jewellery designers and we are proud to be associated with them.

More questions or not answered your query in full?

If you have any more questions on this and any other issue we will be happy to answer them through our FAQs or in person.

View the complete list of FAQs on our customer support portal

We deal with support and email enquiries 7-days a week and endeavour to resolve them within one business day. Please check our customer support portal if you have a question or any issue you need resolving. Most queries will have already been answered but if they have not you can submit a support ticket through the portal.

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