Sustainability: Water and Jewelry
Water is one of the most overlooked resources in jewelry manufacturing. At first glance, the connection isn’t obvious, but water is used in numerous production steps—from polishing and cleaning to electroplating and casting. This isn’t just a matter of consumption, but also of which metals, chemicals, and residues subsequently end up in the wastewater.
The Truly Precious Foundation is kicking off a new webinar series on sustainability issues in the jewelry supply chain with this topic, which has rarely been addressed in detail until now.
A newly established foundation in the jewelry industry
Truly Precious is a nonprofit foundation established in Amsterdam in 2025. It collects, organizes, and disseminates knowledge about sustainability in the jewelry industry and operates an international platform for exchange among mines, gemstone dealers, jewelers, manufacturers, brands, scientists, and industry organizations.
The founders include sustainability consultant and scientist Danielle Keller Aviram and jewelry designer Joy Harvey. Harvey is a co-founder of the B Corp-certified jewelry studio La Luce and was a participant in the 2025 Artisan Residency program initiated by Vacheron Constantin and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a consultant, researcher, and lecturer, Keller Aviram focuses on sustainable strategies in the jewelry and fashion industries.
The foundation does not trade in jewelry or raw materials itself. Its focus is on sharing expertise and fostering dialogue about the complex interrelationships within the supply chain.
Kickoff with “Water & Jewelry”
The first webinar in the six-part series is titled “Water & Jewelry” and will take place on August 26, 2026, at 4:00 p.m. Together with freshwater expert Olga Denyshchyk, Truly Precious will examine where water is used in jewelry production and what happens to it after each process.
Denyshchyk has been working on freshwater projects in Europe and Asia for more than ten years. She holds degrees in ecology, environmental studies, and environmental management, and has worked for organizations including the United Nations Development Program and the WWF.
The webinar focuses on water consumption, wastewater management, and potential contamination risks. It covers both work at an individual goldsmith’s bench and processes in small-scale production facilities. The series is supported by SCS Global Services, an international provider of sustainability standards, audits, and independent certifications.
All six webinars are free, will be recorded, and will subsequently be made available on the Truly Precious platform. To participate, you must register for the Truly Precious online community, which is also free.
A part of the supply chain that has been largely overlooked until now
The discussion on sustainability in the jewelry industry usually focuses on the origin of gold, diamonds, and colored gemstones. The main topics are mining conditions, traceability, and certifications. How these materials are processed after they are mined receives significantly less public attention.
The issue of water highlights that the ecological assessment of a piece of jewelry does not end at the source of the raw material. Between the mine and the finished product, there are numerous processing steps whose impacts are often more difficult to assess. Water connects different levels of the supply chain: It plays a role as early as the raw material extraction stage, but is also needed in workshops, electroplating facilities, and manufacturing plants.
The informational value of this webinar series therefore lies primarily in making this largely invisible aspect of jewelry production easier to understand. It broadens the discussion to include a resource without which many artisanal and industrial processes would not be possible, yet one that is barely noticeable in the finished piece of jewelry itself.
