Brilliant Earth Review 2020 – Worth Buying Eco-Friendly Jewelry?

Eco-friendly jewelry is jewelry that is produced so as to reduce the impact on the environment. Brilliant Earth has made it their mission to create beautiful, eco-friendly jewelry. However, their jewelry is more expensive than other retailers. So is being eco-friendly worth the price tag? Let’s look at what makes Brilliant Earth eco-friendly to decide whether the price tag is warranted.

There are five components that make Brilliant Earth’s jewelry eco-friendly:

Their diamonds are Beyond Conflict Free

Most jewelers adhere to the Kimberley Process. The Kimberly Process prevents diamonds from being used to finance wars against governments. When the Kimberly Process is followed the diamonds are deemed “conflict-free.” Brilliant Earth, however, takes things one step further. Brilliant Earth requires that its diamonds be mined ethically. This means that they must be mined from areas with good labour practices, no human rights abuses, and demonstratable environmental responsibility. Furthermore, Brilliant Earth’s diamonds have to originate from sources with traceable origins. This allows them to verify that the diamonds did, in fact, come from ethical mines.

They use recycled precious metals in their jewelry settings

Most precious metals come from mines with a history of civil wars, labour abuses, and environmental devastation. By reducing the demand for newly mined metals, Brilliant Earth is diminishing the negative impacts of metal mining. Brilliant Earth sources its recycled metal from existing jewelry, industrial use metals and electronic components. Brilliant Earth will even take your old jewelry and turn it into something new. Or, if you prefer, they will give you a credit, for the value of the metal, towards your next purchase.

The packaging they use to ship their products comes from responsibly managed sources

To prevent further deforestation and thus environmental devastation, Brilliant Earth sources the packaging to ship their products from responsibly managed sources. Responsibly managed sources are forestry companies that manage the cutting of wood so that the forest is protected from erosion. Brilliant Earth doesn’t state which responsibly managed sources they use. This vagueness is concerning as we can’t verify that the sources are truly responsible.

Their ring boxes are made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood

FSC promotes the responsible management of forests. They work to prevent clear-cutting, protecting against deforestation. The FSC logo on wood products ensures that it has been made with or contains wood from FSC certified forests or post-consumer waste. FSC labels come in three types: 100%, FSC Mix or FSC Recycled. It is not clear what type Brilliant Earth uses.

They are a Certified Carbon free company

Brilliant Earth partnered with Carbonfund.org in order to offset their carbon emissions by contributing to the Tropical Rainforest Conversation project in Brazil. This project is focused on protecting 750,000 acres of tropical rainforest in Brazil.

Eco-friendly jewelry is more expensive than traditional jewelry. However, when you buy Brilliant Earth’s eco-friendly jewelry, you are supporting ethical mining, protecting against environmental devastation, preventing deforestation and helping to reduce carbon footprints. So whether it’s worth it depends on your political and social point of view. If you do choose eco-friendly jewelry you will find that Brilliant Earth has a wide variety of settings, diamond cuts, and shapes to choose from. In fact, it is this amount of choice that makes the Brilliant Earth website a little overwhelming to navigate. Additionally, many of their pieces are one-of-a-kind. This is perfect if you want a unique gift but it also means that the piece you want may go out of stock quickly. The website is slow to update, so some customers have found that their product is out of stock after they’ve already paid for it.

Overall, Brilliant Earth offers a product that is fairly eco-friendly, with a selection of products that offers a little something for everyone. Therefore if you find something you like the fact that it’s eco-friendly should justify the price.

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