Idea 244 of 500. Cluster 12: The gem chain, from Ratnapura to the certificate
Ethical-mining certification for the small pits, so that the story sells the stone
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel and turned into money in Geneva. Every step of that chain can be built at home, and the first one is the piece of paper.
Every idea in cluster 12 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Visit 5 small pits in Ratnapura with a notebook and record, with each owner's agreement, how they pay workers, handle safety and restore the land. Draft a one-page standard from what the best of them already do. Then ask 3 ethical jewellers abroad whether stones from pits that meet it would sell for more. The proof is a draft standard and a premium named by a buyer.
- Who pays first
- An ethical jeweller abroad whose customers ask how stones were mined and who cannot sell a sapphire without an answer.
- What leaves today
- The small pits have no proof of how they mine, so the ethical premium that buyers abroad pay goes to certified sources elsewhere.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The sapphires in the island's inventory - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
Basel, Geneva and the Swiss gem bridge
More from cluster 12
- 236A gem laboratory in Colombo to the standard of the Swiss ones, with a foreign partner if it must, so the origin report is issued where the stone was mined
- 237Jewellery design studios employing the young designers who now leave for Bangkok and Dubai
- 238A Ratnapura mine visit sold as a day, with a licensed dealer and a laboratory report on anything you buy
- 239Gem-cutting apprenticeships, paid, with the graduates employed by the studios above
- 240A Ceylon sapphire brand for engagement rings, sold online to Sri Lankans abroad and beyond, with the stone's story traced from pit to finger
- 241Auction days in Colombo for the trade, with international buyers flown in, the way Geneva does it twice a year
Idea 244 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.