Editor’s Note
This article highlights Pandora’s global shift to using only recycled silver and gold in its jewelry, a significant move expected to drastically cut the brand’s carbon emissions.
Mexico – The brand, originally from Denmark but present in over 100 countries, has decided to change the way it manufactures its jewelry, opting for more sustainable choices.
Pandora announced that it has changed its supply of precious metals and will now source only recycled silver and gold for all its pieces. With this change in metals, the brand will avoid emitting 58,000 tons of CO2 annually. This is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 11,000 households or to driving 6,000 cars worldwide.
The brand made a commitment in 2020 to source its most used precious metals, silver and gold, through recycling. In addition to opting for recycled materials, the brand will only take recycled metals certified according to the Responsible Jewellery Council’s Chain of Custody, one of the strictest standards in the industry. For this, a change in its operations was needed so that they could source only recycled materials.
According to its estimates, it would reach 100 percent recycled raw material by 2025. However, they managed to reach this goal earlier, and Pandora anticipates that, starting in the second half of 2024, all new jewelry will be made with 100 percent recycled silver and gold. In 2023, 97 percent of the silver and gold used in Pandora’s jewelry was recycled.
Greenhouse gases are closely linked to the mining industry due to the energy required to extract metals. Therefore, the carbon footprint of recycled silver is one-third that of mined silver. The same happens with gold, as the process of recycling this precious metal emits less than 1 percent of the carbon emissions from mining new gold.
Recycled silver typically comes from discarded electronics, old jewelry, silverware, manufacturing scrap, and other industrial waste. Once collected, the recycled silver undergoes a refining process where impurities are removed and the metal is remelted for reuse. Although the process allows the metal to be reused with the same quality as when it was recently mined, in a statement, the brand shared that currently less than 20 percent of the global silver supply comes from recycled sources.