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Answer: What is "dirty" gold? > World Gold Council, the information resource for gold, investment, jewellery, science and technology, historical and culture
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Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat is "dirty" gold?"Dirty" gold is a reference made by lobbyists, mainly NGOs (non-governmental organisations) such as Earthworks and Oxfam USA, who aim to promote improvements in social and environmental aspects of gold mining (often referred to as "Sustainable Development"). Around 2/3rds of gold supply comes from gold mining: the rest comes from recycling (old jewellery, bars, coins and industrial recycling, often referred to as "scrap"), which is around 20% of gold supply, and from stocks of gold bullion held by banks, which is around 13% of supply. So gold jewellery is made from gold from a number of sources, with the most important being gold mining. The gold mining industry takes its Sustainable Development activities very seriously and there are many strict regulations and guidelines for mining of gold. Most mining companies have robust environmental, social and ethical standards and report on these through their annual reports (see WGC Members' Sustainability Programmes or Links section to link to some of the major gold mining companies' reports). Recently (in June 2006), following in the spirit of a number of mining related initiatives including the Mining Certification Evaluation Project, the Framework for Responsible Mining, the World Bank's Extractive Industries Review, the MMSD Report and the Global Mining Initiative, the ICMM (International Council on Mining and Metals) and the ICMM Sustainable Development Principles, and the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices (CRJP), a multi-stakeholder group conducted a dialogue in Vancouver to discuss options for developing a system of independent 3rd party assurance for mining. As a result of this dialogue, the "Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance" (IRMA) has been established by a group of mining companies (e.g. Newmont and AnglogoldAshanti), retailers (e.g. Cartier, Tiffany, WalMart and Signet Group), non-government organisations (e.g. Earthworks, who helped establish the "dirty" gold campaign) and trade associations (e.g. Jewelers of America, ICMM and CRJP) to further develop options for independent third-party assurance in the mining sector (see http://www.responsiblemining.net/). A coordinating committee drawn from the group will facilitate a process for the identification of responsible mining standards and a governance model for the assurance system, and has set a goal of establishing initial standards and a system for governance by 2007. |
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