Starting Over

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Susan Crow
East Fourth Street Jewelry
Northfield, Minnesota

Although she’s now a member of several sustainably minded organizations—Ethical Metalsmiths, the Ethical Fashion Forum and its Fellowship 500—Susan Crow wasn’t always as aware of her materials origins. Nor was she aware of the effect that her manufacturing practices had on the world around her.

Crow worked as a jewelry designer and maker as well as a product designer in the consumer home goods industry for a number of years, but as time went on, she found that she “wasn’t happy with what I was seeing with overseas manufacturing. Many of the factories that we developed our home goods products in were not aware of the environmental or ethical impacts surrounding their manufacturing, and I started wondering if there was another path to take.” She decided that it was time for a change.

Susan Crow

She wound up going back to school at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to study sustainability and sustainable design. The program she was in was “focused on turning designers into global innovators who could not only produce beautiful and functional work, but who could also balance the factors of environment, ethics, and social responsibility in everything they create.”

After completing the program in 2010, she re-branded her existing jewelry company as East Fourth Street Jewelry. The brand focuses on the design and creation of fine jewelry that relies on responsible supply chains supporting Fairmined gold and responsibly sourced gemstones that support the mining communities where they originate.

With each one of her designs, she starts by making sure the materials she plans to use can be sourced responsibly.

“I strive for transparency,” she says. “Most of my materials I’m able to trace from where the material is mined and, for gemstones, where they are cut.”

But it hasn’t always been easy. “It was very difficult to find [responsibly sourced] gemstones [when I started],” she says. “I didn’t buy very many because I wasn’t able to purchase gems with a dedicated back-story that I could trust.

“There’s a two-part journey to tracing gemstones,” she continues. “You want to know where and how they were mined, and also where they were cut and who did the cutting. Was there proper ventilation? Do they pay their workers fairly? Is there child labor? Do they support gender bias?”

However, she notes that things in the industry have shifted, with more and more suppliers doing a better job of tracing the path their stones have taken. Though things have gotten better, Crow notes that there’s still room for improvement, and because of that, her “collection still isn’t heavy on gemstones.”

“I try not to purchase colored gemstones that aren’t traceable,” she says, noting that sometimes that means saying no. “Usually the clients that I work with on custom designs come to me because they know what I do and how I do it. For example, if someone previously wanted a ruby, I would have a hard time purchasing one that was traceable. Now I can offer them rubies mined in Wyoming, Tanzania, or Malawi that are responsibly sourced because I’ve developed relationships with suppliers that I trust.”

At the end of the day, it comes down to being able to trust your suppliers. “I have developed a very strong but small supplier list that I have personally vetted,” she says, noting that she found a lot of the vendors based on their reputations and then vetted them by asking a lot of questions about their business practices along with requesting data to back up their statements.

“Documentation is difficult with colored gemstones; presently, there are no certifications for responsibly sourced colored gemstones,” Crow says. “There are a few organizations working on colored gemstone certifications, but they aren’t available yet.”

When it comes to metal, Crow went through the process to become licensed by the Alliance for Responsible Mining to sell certified Fairmined gold in 2013. While any jeweler can purchase Fairmined gold, only those who are licensed can label products as Fairmined.

Crow admits that the licensing can be a process, as it requires applicants to be able to completely trace their Fairmined gold usage. There is also an annual licensing fee. Even once a license has been granted, there are still requirements to which the licensed jewelers must adhere.

“You can’t mix Fairmined gold with any other gold,” Crow recounts. “You have to keep it completely separate, even when refining. These stipulations are in place to assure the consumer that the product they are purchasing, if marked ‘Fairmined,’ is guaranteed to be made from 100 percent Fairmined metal.”

If Crow can’t get Fairmined gold (or Fairmined silver, which she also uses occasionally), she’ll opt for recycled metals. The same goes for her gold and silver chain and findings, as they are not always available in Fairmined metals.

“I may not always get the exact chain or finding that I prefer, but my main process includes asking my suppliers questions so that I can choose the best option,” she says.

She also extends her sustainable practices to the way she makes her jewelry. “I usually don’t do plating for environmental reasons, and I don’t use many of the chemicals that I used to,” such as Sparex, acetone, silica-based polishing compounds, degreasers, and certain fluxes. “We don’t pour our used solutions down the drain; instead we store used citric acid, detergents, and other cleaners, and bring them to a toxic waste facility in our area.”

Her dedication to being green means that she sometimes has to change her processes to accommodate her green practices. “For example, we have set up our soldering process to do it in the afternoon, putting the items in cold citric acid overnight, since it takes longer to clean the metal, especially when it is cold.” She prefers to use citric acid cold because she doesn’t like to have chemicals evaporating into her studio. “When you heat it, it evaporates faster.”

Susan Crow pullquote

She has even found a way to recycle something that has stumped many a jeweler: the little plastic bags that everything seems to come in these days. “Normally plastic bags aren’t recyclable because they’re treated differently [than other plastics],” she explains. With her bags, she pulls off any paper labels and recycles them with an organization that makes plastic furniture and decking from the shredded plastic bags. “We practice zero waste in my studio.”

One thing she would like to have an easier time sourcing is recycled packaging for her jewelry. “It’s difficult,” she admits. “All of our gift bags and paper boxes are made of recycled paper, but nicer boxes for engagement and wedding rings are difficult to find. I wish one supplier would step forward and use recycled material.”

Since she’s transformed the way that she does business, Crow has noticed that she approaches jewelry design differently.

“Previously when I would design something, I would start drawing with color on paper and then purchase my gemstones for the piece,” she says. “Now, it’s the reverse. Now when I find beautiful stones, and I love their provenance, I design around them. It’s a different way of looking at design.”

She’s also changed the way she talks about and promotes her business. In addition to featuring her dedication to making sustainable jewelry on her website’s homepage, Crow is active on social media, talking about the story of what’s important to her as a jewelry designer. She feels that openly promoting her responsible practices is the best way to connect with like-minded people.

“There are a lot of people who have developed a more responsible lifestyle and are aware of what’s going on globally with other countries in the mining and manufacturing of our goods,” she says. “I think consumers are beginning to look for companies like East Fourth Street because they want their purchases to reflect their personal values.

“Most of our clients find us because of what East Fourth Street represents,” she continues. “Over the last few years, many of our engagement and wedding ring clients are not local. We have developed a process to design and make custom pieces for them remotely with much success.”

When she looks around the jewelry industry, she’s pleased with the strides that it has taken since she first joined the sustainable movement in 2010, but she recognizes that there’s still a long way to go.

“I joined Ethical Metalsmiths in 2012, when the industry was just beginning to change,” she says. “Finding like-minded individuals has helped us develop our supply chains and create a company that we are really proud of.

“There’s a need for greater transparency in the industry,” she continues, noting that it can only give jewelers a better story to help sell their designs, benefiting all parts of the industry. “Transparency and authenticity go hand-in-hand. You can’t be transparent if you’re not authentic. It’s a lifestyle.”