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Sustainable fashion and jewellery: consumers pressurise the companies towards more sustainable models
The European fashion sector is experiencing a transforming process due to new public awareness, increasingly concerned with the environmental impact of its consumer habits. Both fashion and jewellery can be more sustainable, but a strong commitment is required in order to achieve real changes.
The concern for the climate crisis is becoming a key factor in people’s consumer habits. The vast majority of European citizenry does not only consider it necessary to take measures to reverse climate change, but is also undertaking personal changes.
According to data of the Eurobarometer 2023, 93% of European citizens state that they “have consciously opted for sustainability” in their daily lives. Something that directly influences their decisions when purchasing.
Moreover, more than half of Europeans think that companies should take measures and introduce structural changes in questions of climate.
The public’s concern for the climate emergency has pressurised many economic sectors to set off on the road towards sustainability. In the case of fashion, as a counterpart to the predominant fast fashion model, the slow fashion or sustainable fashion current has emerged. A concept that measures the ecological and social impact of companies’ production processes and which promotes a more sustainable economic model.
In the case of textile fashion, its environmental impact at a global level is startling: it is one of the most contaminating sectors in the world, generating a great deal of waste and CO2 emissions. It is also calculated that textile production is responsible for 20% of the world contamination of water.
The sustainable fashion movement took its first steps in the early years of this century, focusing its efforts of the preservation of natural resources, in the search for a low ecological impact on manufacturing and respect for the health and working conditions of the workers.
In textiles, the movement immediately identified the need to moderate production and prolong the useful life of the items, thus moving towards sustainability. Despite the fact that clothing production has increased exponentially in recent years, different firms of sustainable fashion have emerged, focused on these principles, presenting themselves as an alternative that guarantees the minimum environmental impact on their chain of production.
Responsible and sustainable jewellery: the importance of traceability of the raw materials
Another major player in the fashion sector can be found in jewellery. In this case, the starting point for more sustainable fashion lies not only in the size of the production, but also in the origin and traceability of the precious metals with which the jewellery is created.
Initiatives such as Fairmined or the Responsible Jewellery Council enable responsible jewellery creators to guarantee to their clients the use of the gold obtained showing respect for the environment, the land and the workers.
Regarding precious stones, initiatives such as those of Wennick-Lefèvre ensure the extraction of sapphires in an environmentally friendly way. The gems are obtained from small traditional systems of mining in Madagascar or Sri Lanka and are seen as an opportunity to improve the reality of all the people who work in the sector.
Wennick Lefèvre collaborates with the Eden Forest Project, which fights against deforestation in Madagascar, adopting the policy of “for every precious stone, a tree”. This has led to the planting of 10,000 trees since 2019.
Majoral: a decade of commitment to sustainable jewellery and fashion
Majoral’s commitment to the natural, social and cultural environment was stated in 2014, when seeking to connect with the values of its origins, in the Formentera of the 1970s, it lined up with the principles of the Economy for the Common Good. That same year, Majoral became a consumer and distributor of Fairmined certificate gold. An organisation that audits and guarantees that the metal comes from small-scale traditional mines, where safe jobs are created and with practices that respect the environment.
The Catalan company also adheres to the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), conforming to its code of good practices and incorporating untreated sapphires, of a natural colour, and originating from small-scale mines where the gems are extracted in a responsible way. With these actions, Majoral stands up for collective wellbeing and for a model of sustainable jewellery at an environmental and social scale. Overall, it enables Majoral to create traditional and signature jewellery that respects the environment. A commitment to a fairer type of jewellery.
