Since it came into the jewelry market, Jared has been committed to becoming an industry leader in responsible sourcing.
The Signet Jewelers-owned jewelry retailer approaches responsible sourcing in a number of ways, which are anchored by Jared’s commitment to its customers.
“It’s one of the key differentiators for Jared,” said Colleen Rooney, chief communications and ESG officer at Signet Jewelers. “Jared, as a part of Signet, is a part of a purpose-inspired organization. We believe that we exist to inspire love in a world that always needs more love. For Jared, that means the experiences that Jared gives, which are, of course client-led, but also knowing that everything involved in this manifestation of love we call jewelry has the highest integrity.”
Rooney explained that Jared’s strategy for responsible sourcing is broken up into three categories: “love for all,” “love of our team” and “love of our planet.”
The first category focuses on Jared’s philanthropic work. One of Jared’s biggest and long-standing philanthropic partners is St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Over the 24 years that Jared has partnered with the organization, it has helped raise $100 million to support St. Jude. Last year, Jared customers also helped raise $8.75 million for St. Jude, which was the largest single-year fundraising total in Signet’s history.
From the De Beers/Signet campaign “Worth the Wait.”
Arnold Worldwide
“Love for our team” focuses on Jared’s internal workplace culture and love of our planet reflects Jared’s commitment to ethical and environmentally conscious practices.
“We’re committed to making sure that we’re doing everything we can to ensure responsible sourcing, but also to protect this beautiful planet that we live on,” Rooney said. “We have corporate sustainability goals within those three loves.”
Jared partners with several organizations when it comes to responsible sourcing. Signet Jewelers is a founding member of the World Diamond Council, which works to “protect the integrity of the diamond distribution chain,” and the Responsible Jewellery Council, which is said to be the “world’s leading sustainability standard.”
Through these partnerships, Jared works to maintain a conflict-free supply chain and works with refineries to recycle metals to repurpose them.
“We ensure that we have the right supply chain processes that reflect the highest-quality ethical standards, so that our clients can buy from us with value in mind, but also with values in mind,” Rooney said.
Additionally, Jared operates a diamond facility in Botswana where the retailer supports career growth, job creation and renewable energy.
“Jared is a part of a larger ecosystem where we helped Botswana go from the lowest GDP in all of Africa to one of the highest and from one of the lowest literacy rates to one of the highest in Africa,” Rooney said.
Jared’s Design Foundry, which creates bespoke pieces for customers, also aids in its environmentally conscious pursuits. The retailer is able to take in customers’ used pieces and use the materials to transform them into new styles.
From the De Beers/Signet campaign “Worth the Wait.”
Courtesy of Signet Jewelers
“We actually help lead in the circular economy by helping our clients extend the life of their products by recreating something that they were gifted through inheritance, but it might not be something they want to wear,” Rooney said. “So, we can work with them to reuse the materials and create something new.”
Jared details its progress in responsible sourcing and philanthropy through an independently audited Conflict Mineral Report, which it has produced annually since 2014.
Some highlights from this year’s report include Jared’s recommitment to the United Nations Global Compact, which is a global pact that strives to get businesses to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and that the retailer accomplished six of its corporate responsibility roles, like having 180 of its suppliers be members of the Responsible Jewellery Council.
“Because we are a publicly traded company, we commit to a sustainability report annually so that our team members can feel proud, our key suppliers can learn what we’re doing to provide the highest ethical standards for our clients and also our shareholders can feel very proud that everything that we’re doing is very well documented and measurable,” Rooney said about the report. “I think all of our stakeholders just feel a lot of pride when they see that report come out once a year.”
Going forward, Jared is committed to upholding its responsible sourcing values and strives to hit new goals, like Signet’s mission of committing to a net-positive water impact and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions both by 2050.
