2026 Schedule
Friday, October 23, 2025
8:00 - 8:30 a.m.
Conference check in and coffee
8:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Welcome & Supply Chain Mapping
Susan Wheeler and Brandee Dallow
9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
The “Paraiba” Gemstone Rush in Ethiopia
Hewan Zewdi, Agere Treasures | Stuart Robertson, Research Director, Gemworld International | Mkhu Mkhululi N (Nkosilamandla) Ncube | African Minerals Development Centre, African Union |
Join Hewan Zewdi as she describes firsthand how the “Paraíba” gemstone rush began. Hewan was sourcing tourmaline from the same farm where the discovery was made. This is a case study in how quickly value can be extracted from the ground before governance structures catch up. Within weeks of the discovery, informal networks of smugglers moved in to acquire rough material at the point of extraction, followed closely by well capitalized foreign buyers who used liquidity and superior market information to create a monopsony, paying as much as $150,000 a gram and securing the most desirable stones before local traders or authorities could establish fair reference pricing. The Ethiopian government has since intervened to secure the area, a sequence that raises pressing questions about sovereignty, timing, and enforcement capacity in the face of a fast moving international trade. In the fast paced and quickly changing Paraíba rush, when all actors including government are strategizing and positioning, is it possible to achieve equity for the land owner, the gem trade of Ethiopia, and the country as a whole? What is happening on the ground, and what can be done to build a responsible supply chain amid the frenzy?
Saturday October 24, 2025
8:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Coffee
9:00 - 9:30 a.m.
RJT/SCAD/CEJ
To Be Announced Soon
Updates in making Impacts and supporting community
9:30 - 10:30 a.m.
Fresh Water
Confirmation coming soon
Join our speaker as they examine the often overlooked relationship between gold mining and global freshwater systems, framed through the lens of the jewelry industry's supply chain. Gold extraction operations routinely intersect with rivers, wetlands, and groundwater sources that communities depend on for drinking water, agriculture, and traditional livelihoods, yet freshwater impacts are frequently treated as a secondary concern relative to land access, labor conditions, and revenue sharing within jewelry sourcing conversations. Drawing on expertise in community-based freshwater conservation, this panel will address how gold mining alters hydrological systems, from sediment disruption and groundwater depletion to contamination risks tied to tailings, cyanide and mercury processing runoff, and what these changes mean for the ecosystems and communities positioned downstream. The discussion will explore what a genuinely water-conscious approach to responsible gold sourcing looks like, one that accounts for freshwater not as a peripheral environmental risk but as a foundational resource whose protection should be built into extraction planning from the outset, and into the standards jewelry brands hold their supply chains to. What accountability structures exist to monitor freshwater impacts across the life of a gold mine, and what happens when protections fail to keep pace with the speed of extraction and demand from the jewelry sector?
10:30 - 11:30 a.m.
Recycled Gold Loopholes and Why One Corporation Moved Away Altogether
Holly McHugh, VP Sustainability & Social Impact, Mejuri, Inc. | Christina Miller, Christina Miller Consulting | Andres Castellanos, Fair Alloy
Recycled gold remains a persistent blind spot in responsible sourcing conversations, despite years of reporting and public attention. This panel examines the trade routes through which conflict gold and illicit gold flows continue to enter the recycled stream, often labeled and marketed as low-risk or already compliant. Panelists explore what corporations, refiners, and standards bodies are doing, and not doing, to ensure accountability across these channels. The discussion addresses persistent data gaps at major standards bodies, the economic incentives that favor recycled sourcing over traceable mined gold, and the limitations of current assurance systems in capturing true chain of custody. Attention also turns to emerging efforts to classify recycled gold as waste, a move that could sidestep carbon and origin liabilities altogether. The panel raises the question of what standards can and cannot deliver, and where the gaps leave room for laundering to continue unaddressed.
10 minute break
11:40 - 12:30 p.m.
Coming Soon
Coming soon
Panel Coming Soon
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch & Mentoring Sessions
Emily Chelsea, Retailer | Christina Miller, Responsible Jewelry Business | Holly McHugh | Corporate Jewelry Sector Andrea Jose, Jewelry Designer | Dana Bronfman, Jewelry Designer | Anna Bario, Retailer | Dani Cutler , Supplier | Jay Moncada, Supplier
New to the world of responsible jewelry? Curious but unsure where to start? This informal coaching session offers one-on-one conversations with experienced mentors from across the industry—designers, retailers, suppliers, NGOs, and more. It’s a judgment-free zone to ask the questions you might not feel comfortable voicing in a larger setting. Whether you're just getting started or looking to grow, this is your chance to sit down, connect, and get real answers from people who’ve been there.
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
Sudanese Gold Funding a War
Brad Brooks-Ruben, Partner, Arktouros | Lauren Fortgang, Director of PAEMA | Dr. Mutasim A Ali, SJD, Senior Legal Advisor at TheRWCHR
The visionary jewelry designers who have joined the Reciprocity collective create incredible jewelry with gold and silver that is both traced back to the women miners and mercury free. Reciprocity has been exhibiting a capsule collection during NYCJW for three years and has become a must see destination during the week due to its beautiful rain forest inspired decor and repertoire of some of the most notable international jewelry designers who participate in the show.
2:30 - 3:30 p.m.
Policy in Action
Brad Brooks-Ruben, Partner, Arktouros | Lauren Fortgang, Director of PAEMA | Dr. Mutasim A Ali, SJD, Senior Legal Advisor at TheRWCHR
Endangered species of animals, mammals and insects can be impacted by the jewelry industry in a myriad of ways. The Pink Dolphins in the Amazon have been found to suffer from mercury poisoning stemming from the processing of illegal gold that is proven to be in “recycled gold”. The Rhinos of Mozambique are victims of illicit gangs with convergence in the gemstones trade. The Monarch habitat in Mexico became unstable due to mining, until a ban on new mining was passed into law in 2023, leading to rising numbers in their population. Understanding the place and circumstance of where we source our materials and what effect this has on wildlife there is important for us to help save these vital species.
A Gold Campaign
Speakers Coming Soon
4:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Cocktail Reception Following the Conference on Site
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Natural Diamonds: The Future of Responsible Diamonds in an Economic Crisis
Thabo Lerotholi, Lesotho, Kimberly Process Civil Society | Stanley Zale, President President Zale Advisors LLC |
This panel features representatives of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition to examine possible outcomes when falling demand for natural diamonds effects the physical and social obligations of keeping a mine site safe and honoring its responsibilities to the local community in which it resides. The money required to maintain tailings infrastructure, monitor for seepage, and prevent structural failure becomes harder to justify on a balance sheet, raising the risk of environmental disaster which the diamond industry can least. The consequences extend well beyond the mine site. Many communities surrounding these operations lost their traditional livelihoods, farming, grazing, or other land-based work, when mining moved in, and have since come to depend on mine employment, economy and the local development projects that mining revenue supported. The resulting loss of revenue to these communities has direct implications for household stability, women's economic empowerment initiatives, and access to basic services that were never backed by lasting infrastructure in the first place. We will discuss, what industry standards, accountability mechanisms, and stakeholder engagement frameworks can be implemented, upheld or developed to ensure equitable outcomes for affected communities and how mine safety and community support be sustained throughout a prolonged period of economic downturn.
10 minute break
11:10 - 12:00
When We Sold God’s Eye
Basilio Vargas Altico, Featured in Documentary, The Devil’s Miner, Silver Miner Bolivia (Speaker) | Carmen Cristina Capriles Flores, Engineer in Agronomy - Sustainable Rural Development, Political Consultant - International Environmental Policy (Translator & Presenter)
For the first time, the jewelry industry must confront that silver, a material so often used, often comes from mines at the center of serious human rights and environmental justice struggles. Across the world—from the Xinka and Apache, resistance to silver mining in the United States and Guatemala, to Indigenous Zapotec and Huichol opposition in Mexico, to Quechua and Aymara fights in Peru and Bolivia, to Mapuche Tehuelche defiance in Argentina’s Patagonia, to the Batwa and other African groups, and Indigenous communities in the Philippines and Indonesia—mining has meant dispossession, contamination, and cultural loss. Silver from these contested regions circulates invisibly in global markets, leaving its impacts unaddressed by the jewelry sector until now.
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch & Mentoring Sessions
Emily Chelsea, Retailer | Christina Miller, Responsible Jewelry Business | Holly McHugh | Corporate Jewelry Sector Andrea Jose, Jewelry Designer | Dana Bronfman, Jewelry Designer | Anna Bario, Retailer | Dani Cutler , Supplier | Jay Moncada, Supplier
New to the world of responsible jewelry? Curious but unsure where to start? This informal coaching session offers one-on-one conversations with experienced mentors from across the industry—designers, retailers, suppliers, NGOs, and more. It’s a judgment-free zone to ask the questions you might not feel comfortable voicing in a larger setting. Whether you're just getting started or looking to grow, this is your chance to sit down, connect, and get real answers from people who’ve been there.
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
Designing Outside the Box
Anna Samsonova, Samsonova Consulting, Moderator
Coming Soon
2:30 - 3:15 p.m.
Illicit Mercury
Dr. Luis E. Fernandez, Executive Director of Wake Forest University's Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation (CINCIA) |
Responsible sourcing is something many jewelers care about — but until recently, access to gold from small-scale mining communities was limited, complicated, or reserved for the biggest players. At Fairever, we’ve worked hard to change that. Today, certified ASM gold is more accessible than ever — but higher costs, limited availability, and the complexity of separate supply chains still hold many jewelers back. Meanwhile, recycled gold is widely used but doesn’t contribute to change where it’s most needed.
In this talk, I’ll share a new approach we’ve been working on at Fairever: combining recycled gold with responsibly sourced gold credits. This lets jewelers keep using recycled material, but also send real support to artisanal miners — without having to completely restructure their supply chain. It’s a practical, flexible model that lowers the threshold for participating in ethical sourcing, while still making a tangible difference. I’ll show how it works, why we believe it matters, and how it connects to bigger goals around fairness, climate, and transparency. I hope that more people walk away seeing that doing good doesn’t have to mean doing everything. Sometimes, small shifts — done right — can change a whole system.
15 minute break
10 minute break
3:40 - 4:30 p.m.
Speakers Coming Soon
In our businesses we are rapidly building a new supply chains in through our AI usage. What does the AI supply chain look like, and what are its environmental and social impacts? Should companies be counting it within their carbon goals? What standards, measurement tools, and guidance are currently accessible to us? How do we minimize the negative impact of our own growing AI use? Are some AI tools more responsible than others? How can we improve our own business practices around AI?
AI is environmental and social supply chain impact and what we can do to evaluate and mitigate it
Coming Soon
4:30 - 5:25 p.m.
Economic Models For Gemstone Equity
st | Monica Stephenson, ANZA Gem | Eric Braunwart, Columbia Gem House | Jessica Hudson, VirtuGem
MiPanel Title: Economic Models for Gemstone Equity
This panel features three distinct economic business models in the gemstone sector, each operating within local structures. Each organization represents a different point of intervention in the gemstone value chain, from mine to market to finished stone.
Columbia Gemstone uses unrestricted support to mines, facilitating their sustainable growth and commitment to the Columbia Gem House Standards.
Moyo Gems raises up the most in need within gemstone communities, particularly women miners and traders, by facilitating open market access to rough gems through "Market Days."
Virtu Gem creates economic impact by purchasing cut gemstones, delivering the highest price per gem to local gemstone infrastructure.
The panel will close by examining what equity means across all three approaches, and what tradeoffs exist between unrestricted support, market access, and premium pricing. The moderator will ask each panelist to define success within their own model, allowing the audience to compare outcomes rather than methods alone. Panelist order will follow the gemstone's actual journey: Columbia Gemstone for mine support, Moyo Gems for market access to rough gems, and Virtu Gem for finished gem purchasing, giving the audience a value chain narrative to follow.