Making Trouble: Fighting for fair trade jewellery

by Greg Valerio

"Valerio, you're a natural born trouble-maker. Just make sure you make trouble for the right reasons." Expelled from secondary school with these words ringing in his ears, it took Greg Valerio a little while to find the right cause to devote his trouble-making skills to - but eventually he found it. Fighting to apply fair trade standards to the jewellery business has brought him up against an industry riddled with problems. In the last fifteen years he has criss-crossed the globe, from the arctic circle of Greenland, alluvial diamond fields of Sierra Leone and equatorial gold rich rainforests of South America, in an effort to give the customer an ethically pure piece of jewellery, and to give the producers of that jewellery a fair wage and good working conditions. Along the way, he has exposed the jewellery industry's dirty secrets: pollution, child labour, criminality, exploitation, dangerous working practices and much more. And he has passionately argued his case in boardrooms, sumptuous hotels and with government officials from Antwerp to Cape Town, to say there is another way. Having been told it was impossible to have gold jewellery that could be certified as fairly traded from the mine to the shop, he achieved this in the UK. Founder of Cred Jewellery in 1996, he was awarded The Observer Ethical Award 2011 for Campaigner of the Year.

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2013

Reviews

[Stevie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This extraordinary story is more than the story of fair trade jewellery. It is the story of a school drop out who set up in business solely to meet the needs of others. No business training, no resources, no contacts, just a very big heart and the gall to challenge typical unethical big business. It could be the story of sacrificial love through business, for any product. As such this should be the textbook for anyone anywhere who wants to get into business, of any sort. Not even Anita Roderick went to the lengths that Greg and his family and colleagues have gone to, in pioneering ethical production.

Not only does this book reveal the network of activities that construct "trade" and consumer based economies, and the ploys, structures, marketing strategies etc, it shows that anyone with heart and brains can make a huge positive difference to millions of lives. Greg Valerio has not only put the quality of his life on the line but his family have clearly been willing to ride with him. Anyone reading this book should be humbled into kind consumerism and deep appreciation that the Valerio family and colleagues would go through so much for justice.

All the big boys that can now boast a fair trade label in jewellery, and profit from the kudos and profit that comes from fair trade, owe it all to this one man and his family and colleagues, for whom jewellery is still not a particularly lucrative business.

How Greg brought a mega industry to its knees and steered it in a completely different direction is probably the most riveting part of the story.

Be prepared for tears. The gore and cruelty of mineral mining is partially exposed and we cannot forget that until all of the jewellery industry is ethical, there are still many thousands of people who suffer horrendously in order to get shiny metals and jems to adorn our bodies. No wonder Greg Valerio has won the campaigner of the year award.

Read this book if you want to understand retailing, if you want to understand economic systems and consumerism, and if you want to wear or give jewellery.

[Gillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't quite make it half way into this book before getting bored. I wanted to learn all about the jewellery trade's dirty secrets. Instead it was a slow paced overview of CRED jewellery. I was also hoping for a list of fair trade jewellers but unfortunately not. I felt like it was one big CRED jewellery advertisement.