In modern society, more consumers favour sustainable and ethical products, due to environmental issues around the world. This can include gold sales. Environmental, social and governance principles are considered when looking into the ever-growing increase into sustainable and ethical gold, which has gained critical mass. The environmental and sustainable activism towards buying and selling gold was a niche market up until modern society. However, due to the impact and popularity of it now, more and more companies are following and now regulating environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports and performances.

There are a number of reasons to why the gold market is not ethical, the main one being the mining of gold.  By nature, gold mining and extracting is damaging to the environment, as it uses chemicals and the industrial processes taken can be toxic. Death and injury to gold mine workers have been linked with the gold mining process, which has caused significant social conflicts. However, the gold industry can have significant social impacts. This can be because gold miners particularly focus on key social issues in the past few years, such as health and safety issues, inclusion, diversity and even the impact to which gold mining has on local communities and their human rights. The COVID-19 pandemic also allowed more focus to be put on the health of employees and ensuring their safety.

Gold can be made to be ethical and environmentally friendly in a number of ways. Products such as discarded jewellery, laptops and even mobile phones can often be refined and melted down to create recycled gold. This can be extremely environmentally friendly, as it reduces the negative environmental impacts surrounding gold mining, along with being significantly more cost effective. Recycled gold makes up for 25% of the global supply of gold each year, which is slowly on the rise. It is one of the small steps taken by companies to help tackle climate change, as it produces roughly 90% less greenhouse emissions than mining fresh gold. Fairtrade jewellery is the process which ensures gold-bearing is monitored and sourced ethically, in the same way other fairtrade products, such as chocolate and bananas.

Overall, investing in gold can be seen as somewhat ethical. It all comes down to which company you invest in, as certain gold companies are still argued to be unethical and effect the environment and local communities negatively. However, by avoiding these companies, the overall gold industry can become more ethical in the future. Therefore, the more investors which choose to be ethical, the more popularity it will gain. The main unethical reason to gold investing is that of gold mining itself, which has been mentioned. However, investing in gold doesn’t necessarily mean that money is being put directly into mining, but rather the supply chain that encourages it. Therefore, by holding back investments into unethical companies, this unethical mining can be discouraged and more recycled gold can be invested in. At Devon Gold, we always do checks to ensure that our gold is ethical and not harmful to the environment. To sell or buy from us today, get in contact with us!