Sustainability Ethos & Actions

Sustainability is such a buzz word these days. In line with our core values we wanted to give some transparency in what we are working on and working towards.

Sustainability in our Jewellery Workshops

All of the silver and gold used in a workshop at Silver & Steel is recycled. We have two sources; either in house scrap which is being continuously collected, melted down and re-formed, or our supplier Cooksons who use use exclusively recycled precious metals.

Stone setting workshops use second hand / reclaimed cabochons and CZs which are bought from private collections, person to person, around Bristol. We also source some minerals from Bristol District Lapidary Club, these have been foraged and cut by hand.

We teach a recycle and repair workshop to encourage and empower people to keep their jewellery and materials for longer and combat fast fashion in the jewellery industry.

Sustainability in The gallery

In the Gallery we enjoy platforming designers who work with repurposed metals and our designers also make in exclusively recycled silver.

We do have a slight tension between accessibility and sustainability with regards to gold.

Gold Plate - although the plating company used by our designers does use recycled gold they can’t provide any guarantees as it’s possible that small amounts of non recycled gold make their way into the supply chain. Plating also uses cyanide in the process which is a toxic chemical.

Gold Fill - One of our designers uses Gold Fill. It uses 10 times the amount of gold than plating and is mechanically bonded to the metal so doesn’t use cyanide. We are working with this designer to investigate the supply chains of the particular materials used as it varies item to item.

Solid Gold - Any solid gold we stock is from 100% recycled UK sources, Apart from one designer. This designer is a Fairtrade certified jeweller who only works with fair-trade gold. We are actively having sustainability conversations with the designers we stock and are always looking for designers who work environmental sustainability into their making processes.

Sustainability in Studio

We are currently looking into a long term goal of becoming zero carbon by 2033.

So far we:

  • Have had a carbon survey completed by West of England Combined Authority which we make available to the public here and are implementing the recommendations.

  • We have changed gas supplier from SSE Energy to 100Green which means all of our heating comes from anaerobic digestion. We aim to change electricity supply to 100 Green so that we can be 100% renewable powered once our contract is up in 2026.

    We are investigating the viability of hydrogen powered blow torches to replace all propane and butane gas used in the studio - at the moment we have deemed them a little dangerous for beginner workshops but are working on understanding them better and risk assessing.

We are participating in Sustainability certification and training programs with Small Business Saturday and we are part of a Environmental Jewellers Group which is led by a jeweller communicating directly with the environments agency with regards to chemical disposal in the jewellery industry.

We recognise that with any business unless your model is working in a zero waste and completely circular way that nothing is perfect but our aim is to be at the forefront of what’s possible with sustainability within our sector, resources and location.