Abstract
Efforts towards sustainability generally aim to preserve biodiversity and natural resources for future generations. Yet strategies towards this objective have been criticised for their limited effect, including the widely adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The jewellery value chain exemplifies this tension. It is reliant on the extraction of minerals, which pollutes and degrades land while also producing waste and uses hazardous chemicals and equipment. These practices contradict general sustainability objectives, specifically SDG 12, as it explicitly promotes responsible production and consumption.
This research, therefore, aims to investigate sustainability challenges within jewellery manufacturing to identify practical solutions that align with and promote preservation frameworks, initiatives, and thinking – such as cradle-to-cradle, which is used in this study for solution ideation. Divided into different chapters, the first half of the study contextualizes and examines the issues, while the latter half focuses on data gathering, data analysis and problem solving.
This research contributes to an under-explored area of jewellery production by proposing sustainability-oriented shifts that encourage and foster cohesion rather than opposition and degradation.