Carbon Neutral Crystals & jewelry

Sustainability is defined as: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In other words: leaving our children a world that they can live in.

We must understand that all our care and effort to bring up our children healthy and provide them with the best possible education will be useless if they do inherit from us a shattered world.

If we are looking at where we are today, nearly 4 decades after the United Nations demanded a change in our society and the development of the economy towards sustainability, then we cannot help but getting scared:

Current scientific data shows, that there are planetary boundaries. If we overstep such boundaries irreversible change will be initiated that puts the survival of the human species together with all other species at a very high risk. We know now, without leaving room for any doubt, that our species has already overstepped 3 planetary boundaries to the point of irreversible change: We already have lost too much biodiversity (species of plants and animals) to get back to a healthy system. We have already overstepped the use of nitrogen and phosphorus in our agricultural system leading to unpredictable and irreversible change in our ecosystems.

Even more worrisome is, that there are two more factors where we are about to overstep those planetary boundaries:

• Our use of land ecosystems (or better said our destruction of them) has come to a level that is going to become irreversibly unsustainable within years from now.
• Climate change is progressing so fast that if we do not manage to reduce the global use of fossil fuel by 50% within the next 5 years till 2030, we will overstep this planetary boundary too, getting into unknown irreversible high-risk territory where we just can´t foresee yet the catastrophic change that this will mean for the entire world.

In summary: the time for governments, for companies of any sector, and for every human being to keep turning a blind eye to this and act as if nothing was wrong is OVER. Everybody, we as a company, every worker in our company, every one of our clients – we all together, should act, if we truly love our children.

I am aware of the fact, that this still is not an easy message to convey, that change will be hard, and that there are so many excuses not to do anything.

However, the time for excuses is over too.

Still, some crystal shop owners do reject ethical crystals, crystal products, and jewelry because they are of the opinion that their customers would not pay the additional costs of being ethical. Sometimes this is just an excuse for not caring to act. I remember one crystal shop owner who literally answered me, that if the shipping costs from India were cheaper than ours she would not care about the fact that the crystals were produced under unfair and abusive sweatshop conditions.

The fact that you are reading these lines, tells me that you are different. And I would like to congratulate you, dear reader, for having an interest in finding out if you could cooperate with us and provide your clients with crystal products that are truly ethically AND environmentally friendly.

So let´s start doing something.

The baseline: Gemrock Perus Carbon Footprint 2021

By now, there is no room left for doubt about the fact that human-induced climate change is going to be the most dramatic natural force changing the face of our planet and gravely affecting not only the human species’ existence but the entire planet’s biodiversity. Science leaves it crystal clear to us: If the global human society on all its levels does not reduce the use of fossil fuels by 50% over the next 5 years we will pass the planetary climate change boundary and march into unknown high-risk terrain that will harshly impact the quality of life of all future generations, meaning: our children, theirs and so forth.

Put in front of such a daring challenge there is not a single day left to lose for all of us to make a change. Here is what we do and how you can help:

Mining, transport, lapidary work, and final shipping to your business or home, are all steps that result in environmental impacts by using water, energy and other resources.

A carbon footprint analysis aims to translate all the impacts being generated from the first step of mining to the transport of rough rock, production of crystal products, international shipping of those goods to commercial clients, and waste production along the entire chain into one measuring unit, in this case, the amount of climate gas CO2 (measured in tons of weight of the gas) being emitted into our atmosphere.

Gemrock Peru is most likely the first crystal company in the world that has measured its carbon footprint: Our carbon footprint in 2021 was 49.56 t of CO2 emissions.

If we look at where the biggest part of the impact is in our company, then we can see that 46 % of our CO2 emissions are caused by dealing with the garbage produced along the entire production chain. This is quite normal for a production company that converts raw materials into finished products. One has to bear in mind that every tool, every product, and every piece of raw material one uses along the production chain at some point in its product life will become garbage. And then we will use energy to deposit this garbage in land-consuming landfills.

The production of materials makes up 23 percent of our carbon footprint. This does not only include the process of mining the rough rock but includes the production of all other materials we are using like steel tools, packaging materials, etc.

International shipping counts for 21 % of our carbon footprint. 

Forestry resources (basically paper and cart box packaging materials) as well as the use of freshwater make up together for 9 % of our carbon footprint and electricity use is 1 %.

The use of services (accounting, banking services, etc.), as well as the use of restaurants and hotels during business trips, is negligible and below 1 percent of our footprint.

The latter is so low because in 2021 there were no international gem shows. If our company had participated for example in a gem show in Tucson our carbon footprint on travel would have been much bigger.

Based on this analysis we did initiate specific measures in order to reduce this footprint a little more each year. However the only way to reach zero carbon emissions is to plant trees in other places, which extract CO2 from the atmosphere and this way do eliminate the emissions caused by us.

Learning from failure

Over the course of three years (from 2022 to 2024), we thought we had a great offer for our crystal shop clients. Based on our carbon footprint and a cost analysis for a tree planting project in the Peruvian rainforest we suggested to our commercial clients to pay an additional 1 cent for each USD of their order as a donation to a tree planting project. We promised to match their payment by giving ourselves another cent reducing our profits. Together we would have been able to plant double the amount of trees required to eliminate the carbon footprint of our crystals entirely.

Today we have to admit failure: Not one of our supposedly ethical crystal shop clients was willing to support the carbon project with 1 cent per USD.

3 lessons learned:

1. We need to do a better job of educating the crystal industry about the importance of environmental protection.
2. We need to better help our clients bridge the gap between being aware and wanting to improve and actually making the effort to act upon their conscience.
3. To get things done, we apparently need to stop asking and just do it ourselves.

The new and simple 3-step roadmap to becoming carbon-neutral

October to December 2024:

After restructuring the company and moving our production to a new location in 2024 it is necessary to up-date our carbon footprint calculation.

Our new partner companies in the Gemrock group will make their first carbon footprint calculation ever. This way we will cover our footprint from the mine to the arrival of the product at the final clients home.

January 2025

We will make ongoing efforts to reduce the carbon footprint by saving more water and energy and improving recycling and reusing of materials.

Alvar Peru SAC will include the cost for a tree planting project to neutralize the carbon footprint in all our prices (yes, we will stop giving our clients a choice. Sometimes it takes a soft push to get going)

2026 and ongoing

We will start a tree-planting project to neutralize our carbon footprint.

By doing so we will benefit the planet in several ways:

• Protecting biodiversity by creating habitat for thousands of plant and animal species.
• Producing oxygen
• Improving natural water management

There is an easy solution to that:

We are offering you to calculate your carbon footprint using the same scientifically sound carbon footprint method, which was used by us for our own calculation.

Once you know your company’s carbon footprint you can take measures to reduce the footprint and you can include a small amount of money in your price to neutralize your company’s remaining footprint. 

In order to invest your carbon footprint money you have two options:

1. You can donate it to our reforestation project, and save the Peruvian rainforest.
2. You can donate it to any other reforestation project all around the world. As long as trees are planted somewhere on this planet, we are all going to be happy about the success.

Calculate your companies carbon footprint

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