Written by Paula Grineri - Friday, December 28, 2018
The Swiss fine jewelry house
Caroline Scheufele’s awareness was raised by her friend Livia Firth, wife of the famous Colin and founder of the agency Eco Age. In 2013, she launched the Green Carpet line – the first ethical high jewelry collection made of Fairmined gold.
With this announcement, the house confirmed its willingness to pursue its “journey towards sustainable luxury”, even though we are still drawn into genuine luxury. We wanted to know more about the motivation and the values that the Swiss house upholds by asking a few questions to Caroline Scheufele.
It is very difficult to trace gemstones. We have been trying for a few years to develop partnerships in order to make progress in that field. In 2015, in addition to using Fairmined gold, we have introduced a new material into the Green Carpet collection: traceable and sustainably-sourced opals from Australia. In 2016, we signed a unique partnership with Gemfields, the world leading extractor of colored gemstones. Emeralds will meet the principles of sustainable development, in keeping with the “Green Carpet Challenge (GCC)” initiative launched by Eco-Age, which is a first in the industry. Therefore, we are incorporating sustainable emeralds into some of our jewelry sets from the Green Carpet Collection (made of Fairmined gold), along with diamonds from IGC group mines, certified under the RJC Code of Conduct.
More than 30 years ago, our family had the vision and determination to develop a vertically integrated production, as well as to invest in the in-house mastery of all jobs necessary to its production, ranging from the creation of its own smelter from 1978 to the skills of top line artisan jewelers and watchmaking experts.
Thanks to this, Chopard is able to guarantee the control of its entire making process up to the finished product.
Since then, we have pursued our commitment to sustainable development.
• Chopard has been a certified member of the
• In 2013, we launched our Journey towards sustainable luxury, examining key impacts and improving procurement and production processes in order to create a more responsible supply chain from mine to product.
Over the last five years, we have continued our journey passing through a number of milestones, in particular the creation of the incredible Green Carpet Collection. As for high jewelry, the Palme Verte Collection, the first fine jewelry line made of Fairmined gold, only uses traceable and sustainable precious materials.
The world’s first Fairmined gold watches in the L.U.C. collection, not to mention the legendary Palme d’Or, made of Fairmined gold since 2014. In 2017, Chopard launched the second fine jewelry line made of ethical gold: the Ice Cube Collection.
Sustainability has always been a core value to our house. Today is the high point of a vision that emerged over 30 years ago. As of July 2018, we are proudly using 100% ethical gold to produce all of our jewelry and watches.
Chopard also symbolizes the passion of a whole family. Independence is also one of the fundamental values of our house. Our production has reached a high degree of vertical integration, allowing us to make decisions and create freely. We also highly value the training of our craftsmen, which enables us to guarantee top quality. Every Chopard creation has its own story and we encourage creativity in all forms.
Our ambition is to keep on offering unique, extraordinary and bold high jewelry creations. But beyond our actual creations lie their production process and the materials used. The Chopard house is committed to “sustainable luxury”, traceability and ethical gold. This is not the easiest path in that it is fraught with challenges. But we are convinced that it is the right choice and we will stay true to our commitments.
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