Fair Trade Gems® Principles & Protocols

What are Fair Trade Gems®?

Fair Trade Gems® are closely tracked from Mine-to-Market™ to ensure every gem has been handled according to our principles and protocols. This stamp is our certification that the gems you purchase from Columbia Gem House are in fact Fair Trade & Responsibly sourced as a result of this process.

Our principles include environmental protection, cultural diversity, protecting worker's rights in the mining, cutting, and manufacturing processes, education, product integrity, and a fully transparent supply chain.

Our protocols are broken down into levels so consumers are able to get the whole story behind the gems they are buying.

Fair Trade Gems® Principles

Our Principles

Fair Trade Gems® Protocols

The Principles laid out above build the foundation for our Fair Trade Gems® Protocols.

A key part of our Fair Trade commitment is to share the whole story of every gem we sell. From the minute we mine or purchase rough gems, we track each parcel separately with information about its origin. While we’ve done this for 20 years, not all our gems can be identically traced. 

This is why we created our Fair Trade Gems® Protocols with Levels One to Five: so you know exactly what we know. Our goal is to push all our gems into a Level One or Two, but as with all worthwhile things – it’s a process.

As a baseline, we only work with suppliers who believe in creating a traceable and supportive supply chain, even if they aren’t completely there yet. Once we know they are committed, we can work with them to improve, step by step. That being said, we never buy rough that is completely undocumented or untraceable. We improve every year by working with suppliers to document the process and make improvements, if needed. Though, many times the process aligns with our Principles & Protocols already, it is just not documented. 

Each gemstone we sell is assigned a Fair Trade Gems® Level to communicate with our customers the level of information we know about it. So what does each 'level' mean exactly?

Fair Trade Gems® Level One

Can be traced to a specific mine, where we either mine ourselves or have formal agreements with the producer, in which all Fair Trade Gems® requirements for workers and environment have been met. We visit the mine regularly, legally export, and cut these gems ourselves.

Fair Trade Gems® Level Two

Can be traced to a specific rough broker or miner who guarantees the rough comes from a known region in the country of origin. The supplier understands and supports our Principles and Protocols, has conveyed them to the miners, and assures the supplied rough meets those standards. We legally export and cut these gems ourselves.

Fair Trade Gems® Level Three

Can be traced back to the legal documented export of the rough from the country of origin. At this level, we work with the broker or miner to continually improve traceability and then cut these gems ourselves. 

Fair Trade Gems® Level Four

Can be traced back to the gems being cut in our workshop. We are able to confirm country of origin but is typically pre-2001 rough sourced prior to the development of our Principles and Protocols. 

Fair Trade Gems® Level Five

We do not cut these gems ourselves so we cannot document the supply chain, but we only buy gems from suppliers we know and trust. This material is typically pre-2001 rough sourced prior to the development of our Principles and Protocols.

Heritage & Estate Materials

You will find some of our gems labelled with a Fair Trade Gems® Level and an "H" or "E" at the end. These materials are either 'Heritage', materials that were acquired pre-2001 when we first implemented our documentation system, or 'Estate', materials that were acquired after the passing of a friend in the industry, with the intent to help the family liquidate the remaining gems.

Shop Fair Trade Gems®

Explore our collection to find which gems speak to you. To find the Fair Trade Gem Level, scroll to "Additional Information" on each product page for details.