Creative Links: Discussing Sustainability with your Customer

Hosted by Susi Smither of The Rock Hound, a Fair Luxury team member, we will first hear from The National Association of Jewellers’ Compliance & Policy Manager, Katie Gillespie about her work on a Code of Practice for green claims and why industry wide cohesive terminology is so important for both business and ultimately consumer confidence.

Then the conversation will turn to suppliers, exploring the questions to ask to help you talk with confidence about your sources without over stating claims. On this panel, Susi will be joined by Kathy Chappell of Fair Trade Gemstones who is also ‘ethical advisor' to the London Diamond Bourse, specialist in fully traceable coloured gemstones, Stuart Pool of Nineteen48 and to give us insight into responsibly sourced bullion, Duncan Marshall of Betts Metals.

During the second half of the session, we will hear from three leading ethical jewellery brands who’ve successfully woven this into the core of their brands and learn what’s most important to their customers including Alex Angel-Benscher of Vurchoo, Thelma West of Thelma West and Harriet Kelsall of Harriet Kelsall.

There will be in the opportunity to ask questions and join in the conversation.

Katie Gillespie is Compliance & Policy Manager at The National Association of Jewellers and works closely with the NAJ Professional and Technical Standards Group, Trading Standards and other regulatory bodies and is responsible for producing and implementing Codes of Practice and Guidance Notes into NAJ policy, this enables NAJ members to maintain commercially successful and legally compliant businesses. 

Susi Smither FGA, GIA JDT, is founder of The Rock Hound. She has over fifteen years’ experience in the jewellery trade and has honed her skills starting with a short course in jewellery making at Central Saint Martin’s followed by four year’s training in Hatton Garden through to becoming a Fellow of the Gemmological Association and studying jewellery design at The Gemmological Association of America. In 2023 Susi had the honour of becoming a Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths.

After completing her gemmological training, Susi embarked on two life-changing field trips to Sri Lanka and Tanzania with the Scottish Gemmological Association to gain a deeper understanding of sourcing gems. Having always been a conscious consumer it wasn’t until scrabbling around in a pile of tailings in Sri Lanka and spending days in the Umba Valley in Tanzania with a team of miners that Susi fully grasped the disparity between mine and market and the dark secrets of the jewellery industry.

The Rock Hound, are The Gemmologist Jewellers known for taking responsibly-sourced, raw materials to create bold, design-led pieces and are proud Fair mined Gold licensees. Since launching the brand Susi has received multiple industry accolades in the US and UK most recently winning Creative Designer of the Year 2024 at Retail Jeweller’s UK Jewellery Awards.

She’s been a team member of Fair Luxury since 2019, who are a collaboration of jewellery industry changemakers with a vision for a responsible and sustainable future through educating and advocating change.

Kathy Chappell is from Fair Trade Gemstones and has worked in the gemstone business for over 20 years. She emigrated to Canada as a child in 1965, settling in the gold mining town of Red Lake, northwest Ontario and later in the diamond province of Guyana and then in South Africa, returning to the UK in 1974. Through the family gemstone business, she has successfully marketed Ruby and Sapphire from the Chimwadzulu mine in Malawi.

She buys stones from source and is the UK and EU Representative for Columbia Gem House of the USA, a leading proponent of ethical sourcing and distribution. She is a distributor for CanadaMark diamonds from the Dominion Diamond Corporation. She is on the Council of Management for the London Diamond Bourse and is their ‘Ethical Advisor’ as well as a Fair Luxury team member. Her client list includes wholesale and retail jewellers committed to fair trade principles. She is a member of Women in Mining. She assists her father, David Hargreaves, a long-standing mining engineer in the preparation and presentation of consultancy reports on gemstone mines worldwide.

Kathy has been a member of the Fair Luxury team since 2016.

Stuart Pool is a specialist in responsibly mined and fully traceable coloured gemstones, mainly sourced directly from mines in Sri Lanka and Tanzania. He runs gem trading companies Nineteen48, and Crown Gems. He is also a key member of the Moyo Gemstones project.
Stuart works very closely with local mine owners to provide a mine-to-market service, from extracting the rough gem material and the cutting and polishing of gemstones, right up to the marketing and sale of gems to the end customer. The emphasis throughout the supply chain is on maximum transparency and fair rewards for everyone involved.
Stuart supports charitable projects in both Sri Lanka and the UK and he is also committed to educating the widest possible audience about the issues within the jewellery sector. He is supportive of many initiatives and programmes within the industry which are trying to improve conditions and benefits for those involved in all stages of the supply chains.

Stuart is one of the co-founders of Fair Luxury, which was established in May 2014.

Alex Angel-Benscher launched Vurchoo in early 2015 after receiving funding from The Princes Trust.

Alex wanted to create a brand that would make an impact on the world we live in at the same time as creating timeless pieces of desirable jewellery that are perfect for any wardrobe all year round. The idea of Vurchoo was planted while travelling through Cambodia and seeing street children doing what they could to survive; some of them selling whatever they could, including fantastic creations they had made themselves, but without a proper outlet for them.

Alex wanted to find a way to use his passion for design to help them. He decided to work with schools in all corners of the globe, knowing that they all needed an extra source of income, and asked the school children to draw whatever meant the most to them. The results were fantastic, from the colours of Africa to the emotions of Asia, each one was a reflection of the child's story and the culture they were surrounded by.

For every design sold Vurchoo gives between 10-25% of profits from each sale to charities, in the UK and overseas, via their UK partner registered charity Teach a Man to Fish.This initiative empowers not only the pupils but also helps the communities they are part of, and with your support, Vurchoo will be able to keep helping change lives for the better around the world.

Thelma West, founder and owner of Thelma West, is a bespoke-only jewellery designer, with an immense passion for natural gemstones and the individual stories behind them. With a career spanning over two decades, from Lagos to Antwerp and now London, Thelma has always liked to push boundaries, innovating and exploring new techniques and materials. Thelma has mentored many aspiring designers, has been a vocal advocate for ethical sourcing and sustainable practices in the jewellery industry. She was recently one of the key panellists at the State-of-the-Art Jewellery summit held at Harvard university and at the Forbes Under 30 in Botswana. She was also one of the promoters behind the #HandInHand charity auction.

Thelma's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions including Sotheby's 'Brilliant and Black' in both the US and the UK as well as Kensington Palace's recent 'From crown to couture' show. Thelma was listed as one of ‘5 Women at the Heart of the Jewelry World’ by the New York Times and one of ‘7 London-Based Jewelers Serious Collectors Should Know’ by Robb Report. She has also been profiled in countless leading publications such as Business Insider, Forbes, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Vogue US, Vogue UK.’

Harriet Kelsall, founder and owner of Harriet Kelsall Bespoke, is one of the most respected bespoke designers and business trailblazers working in the UK jewellery industry today. She founded her multi-award-winning business from her kitchen table in 1998, with the ambition to inspire and celebrate individuality through creativity. She started a wave to bring reachable bespoke jewellery design to the high street for the first time, whilst also pioneering ethics and sustainability within the industry. Since then, the business has become the UK’s leading bespoke jewellers, with a team of over 40 across four studios.

Harriet was the first female chair of the UK’s National Association of Jewellers, finishing her terms of office in 2022. She now sits on the Steering Board for the UK’s Intellectual Property Office, is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and of the City of London and is a non-executive director for British Allied Trades Federation. Throughout her career she has been recognised with multiple awards such as HSBC Forward Ladies “Retail Businesswoman of the year”, Everywoman’s “Retail Woman of the Year” and one of The Institute of Directors Magazine’s six “women who have most changed the business world”.

Harriet is passionate about inspiring others to pursue creative careers and helping creative businesses flourish. Having mentored many successful creatives, including being a titan of industry for The Peter Jones Enterprise Academy, she wove together the threads that led to success in her book. 'The Creative's Guide to Starting a Business: How to turn your talent into a career' won at the 2019 National Business Book of the Year Awards. She is a regular keynote speaker on subjects including starting and growing a creative business, SME ethics and responsibility and tackling stigmatisms in business around dyslexia and neurodiversity.

Duncan Marshall, is Operations Manager of Betts Metals. Having been in the Precious Metals industry for over 45 Years Duncan has an extensive knowledge of refining and the manufacturing of precious metals, including alloy and process development for the production of wedding rings and semi-finished jewellery products, reproduction of antique alloys for restoration work & the production of investment products including coins and bars.

Starting at Lea Ronal in the late 70s, refining E-waste and low-grade gold bearing scrap, leading onto the development set up of Auro Argento, a subsidiary of Lea Ronal, supplying semi-finished products which included a process that is still used today to produce gold nibs for Parker Pen. Followed by a 2-year period managing the stamp shop for Cookson Gold before joining Capella Manufacturing in 1999 which in 2016 was then acquired by The Betts Group. Continuing here running the Refining and Manufacturing arm. He has been involved with the ethical journey of precious metals for over 17 years, refining the 1st ever Fairtrade Gold to arrive in the UK, Betts remain the only Fairtrade and Fair mined refiner/manufacturer in the UK offering segregated refining across the industry.