Maraismara is a company that deals with the artisan creation of jewels. Its distinctive feature? The sustainability of its materials.
Sustainability and ethics are now increasingly important and incidents in our life. Consumers are looking for companies that are ethical and that guarantee the integrity of the products they sell. Fashion and make-up have made it a mission; even the world of jewels, however, does not lag behind.
Like clothes or make-up, jewelry is also starting to be eco-friendly and green, communicating the importance of being transparent and always referring to ethics. Consumers are starting to look for brands that sell jewelry with precious metals and stones and that, at the same time, offer information on the quality and origin of the materials with which the products are made.
This is why Maraismara has started to focus its business on ethics and transparency. The brand, mainly known for the sustainability of its materials processing processes, is able to provide transparency on the origins of its diamonds and precious stones.
Maraismara and sustainable jewels
Maraismara, founded in 2012 by Mara Bragaglia, is an artisan workshop that deals with the creation and sale of responsible and ethical jewels. Each jewel is handmade and is therefore one of a kind. The company is based on a responsible and detailed study on the extraction and processing of precious pearls and careful protection of the human rights of its workers.
It all starts in 2011, when Mara transformed her room into a laboratory, to create her first headbands. The project was born as a combination of beauty and philosophy, what fascinates Mara and what she manages to achieve.
Over time, however, Mara’s purpose changes. Her passion for beauty and jewelry begins to mix with ethics, transforming sustainability into a key concept of Maraismara:
The arrival of sustainable ethical jewelry was – and will still remain – necessary, because I cannot conceive of beauty as separate from what is good and what is true: aesthetics need an adequate analogue in ethics.
In 2016, therefore, the company became the first goldsmith laboratory in Italy authorized to process Fairtrade Gold.
Gold, however, is not the only responsible material that Mara deals with. Among the various responsible materials there are also Argentium 935 recycled silver, sustainable pearls, precious stones and ethical diamonds.
What is FairTrade
Fairtrade is a fair trade certification mark. The organization, present all over the world, aims to help agricultural producers and improve their working conditions.
Through Standard Fairtrade, the organization establishes international standards, which all the players in the supply chain must adhere to. These standards:
- A fair minimum price and decent working hours are guaranteed;
- They prohibit child labor;
- Producers are allowed to invest in social and health projects through the award of the Fairtrade Award;
- They provide for pre-financing of crops;
- They protect the environment.
The Fairtrade Gold of Maraismara
Maraismara researches and uses only precious materials that are ethical. That is why, in 2016, it introduced the Frairtrade Gold in Italy.
I handcraft all my jewels using Fairtrade gold and precious materials with the same ethical value. I let myself be inspired by these values, by my studies and by the exhibits in museums to create objects characterized by originality and a shared sense that makes them real talismans, guardians of hidden meanings and spokespersons of emotions.
Fairtrade Gold has the same physical form as gold but has a different quality: it is authentically traceable and works alongside the artisanal miners of the ASM (artisanal and small-scale mining) mines. This allows miners to emerge from the state of poverty, exploitation and pollution, thanks to processing and marketing according to Fairtrade standards.
Certification requires the use of protections, safe practices for toxic substances, and safety training for miners. Furthermore, all those participating in the supply chain are periodically inspected by an independent control body.
Recycled silver and responsible diamonds
In addition to Fairtrada Gold, Maraismara also uses 925 Silver and Argentium 935, both of which are recycled. The silver used by Mara can also be found in the Fairtrade Gold mines. Unfortunately, however, the quantities are scarce: 1 kilogram of gold contains only 100 to 150 grams of silver.
As for diamonds, however, Maraismara does not use recycled natural ones, despite their production has a high environmental impact (about 511kg of CO2 per carat). Mara has not yet found a source with adequate guarantees of transparency. But his preference is towards supply chains that benefit artisanal miners.
The diamonds used by Mara, in fact, have the so-called “Canadamark” certification, capable of guaranteeing the integrity of the supply chain starting from the mining site.
Furthermore, other diamonds used by Mara are Ocean Diamonds, extracted directly from the coasts of Africa. In this way, the value of the diamonds remains in the country of origin and the miners work with diamonds that come from known sources.
Sustainable pearls and virtuous gems
A distinctive feature of Mara concerns her travels abroad. In fact, Mara always engages in journeys to discover nature, during which he obtains the pearls of his jewels. All of his pearls come from sustainable farms in Copenhagen, where they are raised to preserve their biodiversity.
Pearl farms are not naturally compatible with marine ecosystems, but through specific techniques, the process becomes sustainable and generates a positive impact on nature.
In Copenhagen, where Mara chooses the stones personally, there is an advanced biology laboratory, where the oysters are fed and cared for, until they are taken to the ocean.
Mara also participates in four supply chains that allow her to work with sapphires, opals, spinels, rubies, topazes, aquamarines, zircons and tourmalines. In addition, she collaborates in two international cooperation projects, which allow miners to work safely and create a stable market for gems.
Jewelry can be sustainable
Operating sustainably means doing more. Beautiful and good must overlap.
As Mara says, it is not possible to create something beautiful if you ignore the materials with which you create it. We must preserve what surrounds us, even when we prevent the shaping of the jewels themselves.
Those of Mara, therefore, are not simple handcrafted jewels with pearls and precious gems; her jewels always convey a fundamental message: even a goldsmith company can be responsible and sustainable.
