High Street jewellers under fire over ethical gold sourcing in Dispatches programme

The documentary, called Dispatches - The Real Price of Gold, will air at 8pm tonight and will focus on the apparent lack of traceability in supply chains for gold and will claim that gold is still being sourced unethically by high street jewellers.

On the Channel 4 website, a description of the programme states that while the documentary makers were secretly filming at Britain’s biggest high street jewellery chains, they exposed “shop assistants giving vastly misleading information about where the gold in their jewellery is mined”.

The programme will also look at the positive impact that newly-launched Fairtrade and Fairmined gold may have and the benefits of the recycling of old gold.

Ahead of the programme, a spokesperson for the Fairtrade Foundation said: “We commend Dispatches for shining a welcome spotlight on an industry that is little understood by the British consumer and for highlighting some of the appalling conditions which exist in gold mines around the world.

“It has been historically impossible for consumers to know where the gold in an item of jewellery was mined. However, increasingly consumers want to be sure that the gold they are buying has not caused harm to communities or the environment.”

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