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Making Trouble: Fighting for fair trade jewellery
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 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.
216 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 20, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 9, 2016
This is one of my top two books I’ve read this year.
The book charts Greg Valerio’s story as a jewellery activist, entrepreneur and co-founder of Fair Jewellery Action.
In 1996 Greg started CRED Jewellery, which became Europe’s first jewellery company to retail fair trade green gold. Greg travelled to places like Sierra Leone and the DRC to see firsthand the catastrophic impact of diamond and gold mining on local communities: children working in unsafe conditions, labourers at risk of mercury poisoning, overworked and underpaid workers desperate to escape their trap, but utterly helpless to.
Making Trouble tells how he became increasingly determined (and successful) to bring change in the jewellery industry, in spite of swathes of opposition, leading to gold becoming adopted as a fairtrade product in 2011, shaking up an industry which has long relied on unethical practices in order to make huge profits.
The book is excellently written, with a blend of superb overacrching narrative and anecdotes that you can taste and smell. Ultimately though, this is a book that will challenge how you look at and buy jewellery.
As Greg says as the close of his book, “Buying jewellery is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to celebrate special moments in the lives of those they love. Make sure the jewellery you buy also celebrates the lives of those who mined it and made it as well.”
The book charts Greg Valerio’s story as a jewellery activist, entrepreneur and co-founder of Fair Jewellery Action.
In 1996 Greg started CRED Jewellery, which became Europe’s first jewellery company to retail fair trade green gold. Greg travelled to places like Sierra Leone and the DRC to see firsthand the catastrophic impact of diamond and gold mining on local communities: children working in unsafe conditions, labourers at risk of mercury poisoning, overworked and underpaid workers desperate to escape their trap, but utterly helpless to.
Making Trouble tells how he became increasingly determined (and successful) to bring change in the jewellery industry, in spite of swathes of opposition, leading to gold becoming adopted as a fairtrade product in 2011, shaking up an industry which has long relied on unethical practices in order to make huge profits.
The book is excellently written, with a blend of superb overacrching narrative and anecdotes that you can taste and smell. Ultimately though, this is a book that will challenge how you look at and buy jewellery.
As Greg says as the close of his book, “Buying jewellery is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to celebrate special moments in the lives of those they love. Make sure the jewellery you buy also celebrates the lives of those who mined it and made it as well.”
November 8, 2016
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.
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.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews