We are always learning and finding better ways to do things, and believe being honest is more important than being perfect. We absolutely love and respect this planet and have had an understanding that we need to do whatever we can for Mother Earth, this has been inherent since we were teenagers in the 90s.

We know we can’t be perfect but we aim to make the best choices we can every step of the way and we are constantly trying to make improvements on everything we do.

Obviously, there is an internal battle when it comes to the fact that our materials are sourced from the earth so we do our best to minimise our environmental impact. Our favourite thing about jewellery is that it’s recyclable, it’s not something that will end up in landfill so there is a natural circularity in what we do.

We completely understand that there is too much stuff in the world which is why we make almost every piece to order and love that every piece is also recyclable too.

Below you can find more of where we are at and what we are working on to reduce our impact.

x Claire & Greg

Our aim since the beginning has been to create jewellery that is everlasting - both in style and in quality. In this way our jewellery can be treasured for a lifetime and beyond, and we encourage mindful consumption.

Our design philosophy embraces both creativity and timeless quality, and we work hard to promote jewellery’s inherent qualities of longevity to maximise the life of our pieces. Our jewellery by its very nature is a circular product - it can be repaired and recycled into new pieces, and all our metal scrap from our workroom is recycled back into the system, thereby creating no waste.

We proudly run our own workshop which allows us to maintain a high level of quality, and we produce much of our handcrafted jewellery on demand and to order, rather than creating excess product.

Our focus is on making sure the materials we use meet our standards of social and environmental responsibility. This means we aim to use responsibly sourced and fully traceable materials in our jewellery wherever we can. We have started to trace where our materials come from so we can understand and reduce our impact - not an easy task with a minerals supply chain many, many layers deep. We’re taking it one step at a time, and are introducing new materials as we identify areas for improvement and find suppliers who are aligned with our values.

We are committed to ensuring all the materials we use meet our standards for environmental responsibility, fair work and human rights. This is one of our biggest challenges because we have discovered that some materials we use are not fully traceable right back to raw material stage. We are working with our suppliers to determine the origin of the materials they supply us with, and their sourcing practices, so we can understand the impacts happening in our supply chain, and encourage more transparency in the industry. This is an ongoing project.

We are continually researching and trialling new responsible sources for each component. In 2019, we introduced traceable sapphires into our collection, and have seen first hand the Australian mine where these come from. In 2020 we formalised our principles for transparency and responsible sourcing into our supplier contracts and aim to extend this down our supply chain.

This process showed us that increased traceability and ethics requirements adds additional costs, another challenge which we are currently working through. For example, some of our ethically sourced sapphires have a higher price than diamonds, causing us to question how we can provide you with a product that is still viable to produce and affordable to purchase.

The people we interact with are the most important part of our business, whether that be our employees, customers or suppliers. We have the utmost respect for everyone who contributes to Meadowlark and are committed to ensuring our partnerships are mutually beneficial.

Our goal is to make sure that all the people who contribute to our jewellery are paid fairly and treated with respect. To achieve this we are working in partnership with our suppliers to understand their social responsibility practices and how these are extended down their supply chains. A lot of the questions we are asking are new to them, so we are working to address these challenges together, firstly with a focus on transparency and communicating our standards for fair wages and work.

We are proud of the fact that most of our pieces are made in house by our skilled jewellers. Our team are an integral part of our business and we’ve worked hard to create a respectful and supportive culture which allows staff to bring their real selves to work.

A small selection of our styles are manufactured by long term partners in China. We have a close and long standing relationship with the owner of our Chinese factory and are working with them to ensure they continue to meet our ethical standards.

We have huge appreciation for each of our customers, as we know there would be no Meadowlark without you. It is an absolute honour for us that people choose to buy our pieces with their hard earned money and we take this responsibility seriously.

The challenges facing our planet are enormous, and this has strengthened our resolve to make sure we are doing all we can in our business and in our home lives to reduce our footprint.

Our workshop and office are powered by renewable energy from a climate positive company, Mercury Energy. Meadowlark is proud to be certified Climate Positive Business Operations with Ekos. We have measured and offset 120% of our carbon footprint for 2019-2020 FYE with certified carbon credits.

We recycle everything we can including card and paper, and all soft plastics that come into our business are recycled through a New Zealand company that turns them into new products thereby creating a circular solution. In 2020 we introduced 100% recycled ziplock bags as part of our packaging solution for online orders.

We’ve been composting since January 2016 and we encourage you to do this at home, it’s a huge help to the planet to keep food waste out of landfills. If you are in Auckland we recommend Green Gorilla, maybe share the costs with your neighbours.

We also provide keep cups, and use refillable consumables to cut out single use items. We also compost paper towels from our bathrooms and tissues used by jewellers during the making process.

We can do better and are actively working on ways to reduce our footprint further through logistics, waste reduction and packaging.

We are committed to ensuring all the materials we use meet our standards for environmental responsibility, fair work and human rights. This is one of our biggest challenges because we have discovered that some materials we use are not fully traceable right back to raw material stage. We are working with our suppliers to determine the origin of the materials they supply us with, and their sourcing practices, so we can understand the impacts happening in our supply chain, and encourage more transparency in the industry. This is an ongoing project.