Supply Chain Circular Economy

Pandora Now Sources 100% Recycled Silver, Gold for Its Jewelry

By using recycled instead of newly mined silver and gold, Pandora avoids 58,000 tons of CO2 per year. The company expects that it will craft all new jewelry with 100% recycled silver and gold from the second half of 2024.

Published 2 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: Pandora

Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry brand, has announced it has changed its precious metals supply and is now sourcing only recycled silver and gold for all its jewelry.

The company says the shift avoids significant greenhouse gas emissions, as mining requires more energy and resources than recycling. The carbon footprint of recycled silver is one-third that of newly mined silver; while the recycling of gold emits less than 1 percent of the carbon emissions from mining new gold. By sourcing recycled metals, Pandora says it will reduce carbon emissions by around 58,000 tons per year — an amount similar to the annual electricity use of 11,000 homes or driving 6,000 cars around the world.

“Precious metals can be recycled forever without any loss of quality. Silver originally mined centuries ago is just as good as new, and improved recycling can significantly reduce the climate footprint of the jewelry industry,” said CEO Alexander Lacik.

In recent years, the jewelry industry has begun to address some of the environmental and social atrocities inherent in production — particularly around mining — and Pandora has made several remarkable changes to its supply chain in recent years in the name of sustainability: In 2020, the company set a target to source 100 percent recycled silver and gold by 2025; in 2021, it began a shift away from mined diamonds toward lab-grown with Pandora Brilliance — its first carbon-neutral collection — and in 2023, added three more lab-grown diamond collections; and in 2022, Pandora joined the Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030 — which aims to build climate resilience in jewelry supply chains, ensure the industry’s sourcing has a positive impact on nature and communities, and foster inclusiveness in supply chains.

Silver and gold are the most used precious metals in Pandora jewelry. With this most recent announcement, Pandora says it achieved its 2020 goal of using 100 percent recycled silver and gold two years early — at the end of 2023 — thanks to strong commitment and engagement from its suppliers.

All suppliers have had to switch their operations to only source materials that are certified recycled according to the Responsible Jewelry Council Chain of Custody Standard — one of the strictest standards in the industry. For many, this has introduced new processes and equipment to ensure complete segregation of mined and recycled metals across the entire supply chain including sorting, melting and manufacturing. More than 100 Pandora employees have been involved in the transition work.

Allowing time for the depletion of existing inventory of metals, Pandora expects that it will craft all new jewelry with 100 percent recycled silver and gold from the second half of 2024. In 2023, 97 percent of the silver and gold sourced for Pandora's jewelry was recycled.

Today, less than 20 percent of the world’s silver supply comes from recycled sources — typically from discarded electronics, old jewelry, cutlery, manufacturing scrap and other industry waste. Once collected, recycled silver undergoes a refining process where impurities are removed, and the metal is recast to be used again.