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The press luncheon for the New York launch of Too Precious to Wear, a campaign about coral conservation, brought together a curious assortment of people. Home décor designers mixed with professors of marine biology while fashion editors stood chatting to coral conservationists. Across the room of tables adorned with pink and red roses, the colours of the campaign, a smiling Michael Kowalski, chairman and chief executive of luxury jeweller Tiffany, was spotted having his photo taken with the glamorous Julia Dreyfus, star of Seinfield and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Kowalski was there because the Tiffany Foundation is awarding a grant of $675,000 over the next three years to ocean conservation group SeaWeb, which is campaigning to stop precious pink and red corals being stripped from reefs to supply the fashion and design industries.

In fact, the foundation supports several coral conservation projects. Tiffany has not used real coral since 2002 and is still one of the few firms with an articulated policy on coral conservation, even though climate change, over-fishing, pollution and coral farming have already destroyed 20 per cent of the world's coral reefs. At the Too Precious to Wear launch, Kowalski said he hoped that would change very soon. ‘We are hopeful that in asking the fashion and design industries to lead by example, sustainable will soon be included in the fashion lexicon,' he said.

Sustainability, according to the company, is Tiffany's most important design, and although it may be fashionable these days for companies to tout their green credentials, the jeweller does not just pay lip service to the principle.

Since Kowalski became chief executive in 1999, he has staunchly advocated that Tiffany should source precious metals and stones in socially and environmentally responsible ways. Aside from its commitment to coral preservation, the company was one of the first to sign up to the No Dirty Gold campaign in 2004, which created standards for the ethical extraction of gold.

It refuses to use any Burmese rubies even though the act passed by the US government in 2003, which banned the import of these gems on humanitarian grounds, contains loopholes that allow rubies mined in Burma but cut and polished in other countries into America. Similarly, Tiffany only purchases diamonds from companies that are full participants in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, created to combat the flow of conflict diamonds. According to the company, this is not just good for the industry, but for the brand, on the basis that its affluent customers expect high standards.

Arguably, most top jewellers restrict where they source certain gems and support the Kimberley Process. But where Tiffany is really ahead of other luxury retailers is in creating a transparent ‘chain of custody' for its jewellery, according to Linda-Eling Lee, a retail analyst at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, a research firm that analyses company performance based on environmental, social and strategic governance issues.

In other words, it is committed to sustainable sourcing initiatives from the mine to the manufacturing plant to its stores. Indeed, two years ago, Tiffany became a founding member of the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices, which developed a code of conduct for ethical business practices throughout the whole supply chain. ‘There are risks to this, and it's possible that there are still gaps in its supply chain, but they are still ahead of many in their industry,' says Lee.

When the Tiffany Foundation was founded eight years ago to provide grants to non-profit organisations dedicated to the education and preservation of design in the arts, it immediately became a core part of this overall CSR strategy. Its mission was to channel the company's existing philanthropic efforts in a more strategic fashion, and to have more impact at a national and international level.

Initially, the causes it supported were wide-ranging, but the foundation, which has made around $12 million in grants so far this year, is now exclusively dedicated to the education and preservation of decorative arts and environmental conservation, and has become closely aligned to the brand. ‘We started out with a very broad vision, and as we evolved, we wanted to make our dollars have impact. We used to do a lot of smaller grants early on and now we are focused on larger grants that have a bigger impact in their communities,' says Fernanda Kellogg, president of the Tiffany Foundation.

Within environmental conservation, it focuses on coral reef conservation, urban park and land protection in the communities in which Tiffany operates, and responsible mining. The later includes the development of common standards, increasing awareness about the need for responsibly sourced materials and enhancing social and economic development in local communities. 

‘By narrowing our focus to specific areas, we can affect change,' says Kellogg, who adds that Kowalski, who is on the foundation's board is very active in its direction. ‘We take his vision for the company and bring that into the foundation.'

In the same way that Tiffany focuses on its entire supply chain, Kellogg says that the foundation's environmental conservation and the support of decorative arts represents the life cycle of its jewellery. ‘We think it is core to what Tiffany believes in and core to our basic business,' she says. ‘Because  all the materials that we work with come out of the land, we have to be responsible to the land, to its conservation and in mining. It ends up as beautiful jewellery, which brings us to the decorative arts side of our work. The causes we support follow the path of our product from the earth to a piece of decorative art of great beauty.'

One of its most recent grants was aimed at empowering small producers along that supply chain. Last month, the foundation gave $100,000 to The Institute for Sustainable Mining to fund a scholarship programme for students to attend two gemology institutes in Madagascar and train to become gem cutters, gemologists and jewellery designers. Most of Madagascar's gems are exported as rough stones, so the programme should spur local economic development and create skilled, higher paying jobs in the community.

The foundation has also helped Tiffany push ahead of the pack in some environmental and social causes. ‘It's always good to be a little bit ahead of the curve so we can show that we are innovative in the projects that we support,' says Kellogg. ‘We're out there ahead of most and many.' She points out that coral conservation is a good example of a cause that benefits the environment and the company. ‘We want to protect the coral itself, but also without healthy coral reefs, you can't have healthy oceans or healthy pearls. And pearls are a big part of our business.'

Innovest's Lee says that another way in which Tiffany is ahead of its competitors is the savvy way in which it tackles future environmental or social concerns head on, and publicises its position. The company recently hosted a screening in Manhattan of Red Gold, the acclaimed documentary film about the attempt by Pebble Limited Partnership to build North America's largest copper and gold mine in the Alaskan Wilderness. If it goes ahead, the project could cause widespread pollution and destroy the local salmon fishing industry. After the screening, Kowalski pledged that Tiffany would never source gold from the mine and urged other jewellers to do the same.

Tiffany says its affluent customers expect these efforts, but is completely sustainable jewellery really an important issue for consumers?  Lee says that it is becoming more so. ‘It's not front and centre with consumers in the same way that, for example, organic food is, but we believe it will be over the next few years.' She points out that Walmart, which is the biggest jewellery retailer in the US, has just launched a line of environmentally-conscious jewellery produced with 100 per cent traceable gold and silver, which indicates growing interest from more mainstream consumers.

If the world's biggest retailer is already on the bandwagon, it can only be good news for Kowalski's quest to galvanise other jewellers, retailers and fashion designers into action.

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