Green From the Get-Go

She carried her long-held concern for taking care of our natural resources from Hawaii to California, where she studied jewelry making at the California College of the Arts. It was also reflected in how she approached her studies. When her final assignment required her to work with a non-metal component, she was initially dismayed.

“I thought they meant a gemstone,” she says. “My first reaction was that I didn’t want to work with stones. There was no allure for me. I don’t know why, but something didn’t feel good about using objects that were being pulled out of the Earth.” 

Eventually Coonen learned that her final project wasn’t limited to just gemstones and she wound up using dried and pressed ivy leaf. “I was opposed to the concept of mining, but something found naturally lying on the ground during a hike or a walk did not feel harmful to me,” she says.

But the realization that she wasn’t interested in using stones in her work established the pathway she followed as she started her jewelry design business in 2008, where she specializes in creating jewelry that is socially responsible and eco-friendly. To this day, she still prefers to use specimens that have been collected in their natural state, rather than mined gemstones, to avoid disturbing the environment. “I strive to find all of my specimens already deceased or naturally fallen, though I admit that I pick and harvest some of my leaves and lichen,” she says. “I hope that doing so honors the environment through education, rather than harming it by leaving a large mark like mining.”

Interestingly, for reasons unknown even to her, Coonen’s disinterest in using gemstones because they were pulled out of the Earth didn’t extend to precious metals. At least initially. In 2006 while she was working for other jewelers while slowly developing her own line, she attended a SNAG Conference and heard about Ethical Metalsmiths. “I started learning about metals and the impact mining them has on the environment,” she says. “It spun me into a rabbit hole. I switched over to 100 percent recycled metals.”

While obtaining recycled metals and Fairmined gold is easy these days, gemstones can be tricky. Since incorporating gemstones into her line in 2015, Coonen has come to rely on a small network of trusted dealers with whom she’s developed relationships. Before she’ll buy from a vendor, she first vets them.

“I ask a lot of questions,” she admits. “I probably make gem dealers pretty annoyed or uncomfortable, but it’s the only way I can get the information that I need.” Among the many questions she’ll ask are where a stone was mined, who cut it, and the path that it took to the dealer. 

If customers request specific types of stones for which Coonen can’t find fully traceable and responsibly sourced options, she’ll offer alternatives. “Most of the time, they’re ok with it and will go along with me with what I think is best,” she says. “There’s a layer of trust there. I’m not worried about losing a sale with sourcing a stone that I’m not comfortable with.”

She prefers meeting with her clients in person as a way to help establish that layer of trust. “It’s hard to build trust over online interactions,” she says. “If we can’t meet in person, I often find ways to talk to my clients over the phone or Skype so they can see that I’m a real person with real values. It’s during these meetings when they will say, ‘Whatever you think is best, I trust you.’ It’s really the best feeling to be trusted with their design and sourcing decisions.”

And her dedication to being responsible also extends to her shop practices. “I don’t work with chemicals,” she explains. “My flux is pure borax. I keep it as simple as possible.” She also uses vegetable oil-based polishing compounds that are water soluble, non-toxic aluminum oxide flex-shaft polishers, citric acid pickle, and basic cleaning products such as vinegar and baking soda. “I avoid plating, etching, or any other solvent/chemical-heavy processes.”

She also points out that living in California, which has high standards for how things can be disposed of, makes it easy to find resources for recycling and adhering to green practices. “I feel lucky to work and live in a place that cares about these things.” In addition to having a good ventilation system for her soldering, polishing, and flex-shaft stations as well as filtering and drying all liquids containing precious metals for refining, Coonen has both recycling and composting bins installed in her studio and makes it a point to not use single-use items in the shop. For example, instead of paper towels, she has towels for cleaning up that can be used multiple times before being refined.

She even extends her green ways to the business side of her business. All of her business cards, post cards, and other promotional materials are printed on 100 percent recycled paper with 100 percent soy and vegetable inks, which produce low to zero VOCs. She prints her invoices on 100 percent recycled paper, stores items in biodegradable baggies, uses 100 percent recycled tissue paper, and makes it a point to reuse as much of her packing materials as possible. 

One area that she continues to struggle with and that she would like to see the industry address is with packaging. “You spend all this time making a [responsibly sourced and manufactured] ring, and then you can’t find a box to present it in that meets the same standards,” she explains. “You can find recycled cardboard boxes, but not one for an engagement ring. They’re impossible to find.”

Despite her dedication in ensuring that the materials and methods she uses to create her work meet responsible standards, she admits that she doesn’t heavily promote or advertise that fact. One reason for this is that she doesn’t need to: Her customers come to her mainly for her design aesthetic, which she defines as being heavily influenced by nature, rather than her commitment to responsible sourcing. But it’s also a purposeful decision: She views her commitment as something that reflects her personal core values.

“It’s more about me being comfortable with the choices that I’m making in the world, and not about profit and visibility,” she says. 

However, while she doesn’t openly promote her practices with customers, she admits that they can help with sales. “If someone is shopping for a ring, and they like five and one has more of a story, it could help with that purchasing decision,” she notes. “Plus, it helps me to connect with customers. I can bring it up as a talking point, and people want to pick up that conversation. It’s nice being able to connect with a customer.”

Although she’s surprised that many of her customers don’t initially know much, if anything, about the responsible sourcing of jewelry materials, she likes that she’s educating them through the products she’s making. She says her soft promotion is akin to a tag on a t-shirt: “You like the t-shirt...then you read the tag and learn more about it, and you feel even better about the purchase.”

Coonen does note, however, that doing business would likely be easier if she didn’t care where the materials she used came from. “It’s made it more difficult and limited. If I’m shopping for a stone and I can’t find a responsible option, I can’t find the option.” She estimates that she has problems sourcing a stone for a customer around 30 percent of the time. But of those problem projects, she believes that she’s diverted the customer to a fairmined or other ethically sourced stone 100 percent of the time. There have been times when “maybe I’ve lost a client or two in the first few e-mails, when mentioning that I don’t work with a specific stone, but I can always tell those clients weren’t the right fit in the first place,” she explains. “I think that naturally happens to all goldsmiths.”

Despite the added burden, she wishes that she had been even more responsible when she first started her business. “If there could have been a college course on [sustainable practices], that would have been huge,” she says. “I wasn’t educated on a lot of this until later. There were maybe a few choices I wouldn’t have made, a few fluxes I wouldn’t have used.” 

She also recognizes that it’s a lot easier to start off with responsible practices than it is to have to change your established practices further down the road. 

“The farther you get into something, the harder it is to change,” she says. “When you get out of school, you buy all these tools for your business and it’s harder to get rid of them to replace them with greener options you learn about down the road. It all comes down to that initial education.”