Moving Toward Fair-Trade Gold and Jewelry

Abstract

Written by the Executive Director of the Alliance for Responsible Mining, this article presents the development of the Fairtrade and Fairmined Standard Zero for Artisanal Gold, which emerged from the Colombian Green Gold Certified project. The author contextualizes artisanal and small-scale mining globally, documenting more than 13 million people dependent on this activity. The text details the participatory process of building the standard since 2006, presenting pilot tests carried out in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador and the tools developed for assessment, production costs, and traceability.