At Temple St. Clair, we strive to be an inspirational force not only in the creation of beautiful jewels but also in how we exist in the world.
We are committed to conducting business in a manner that recognizes our responsibility towards a broad system of people, values, other organizations, and the natural world.
Our goals at Temple St. Clair for implementing our standards of responsibility are grounded in our respect for human rights and in our commitment to protecting and preserving the Earth. It is our mission to manage our impact - increasing the positive while reducing the negative.
At Temple St. Clair, we are guided by our commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as put forth by the United Nations General Assembly. It takes an extended global village of communication, cooperation, and transparency to mind the wellbeing of each person that we work with. We are committed to responsible working practices at home and abroad.
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At Temple St. Clair, we are committed to the responsible procurement of precious gemstones, metals, and all other materials we work with every step of the way. We seek partnership and transparency with all our vendors in our upstream supply chain to ensure best practices both in human rights and the environment.
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Temple St. Clair draws infinite inspiration from the natural world, and we believe it is our duty to help protect the planet in every way that we can. We are committed to monitoring, refining, and improving our environmental performance both at home and abroad. We welcome solutions from friends and colleagues as alternatives are created and identified.
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Giving back is an important part of the culture at Temple St. Clair. We support a range of initiatives that fall under the auspices of Community, Conservation & the Arts. We have long term relationships with community and arts organizations in New York City, and with conservation organizations in Kenya.
Learn moreTemple St. Clair received certification from the Responsible Jewellery Council in May 2021. To achieve this certification, the company (TSC) went under a vigorous audit process that must be maintained year to year with regular audits required every three years. The RJC is the world’s leading standard-setting organization for the jewelry and watch industry. Certification by the RJC demonstrates an organization's commitment to responsible practices around human rights, social issues, and the environment in a transparent, accountable manner throughout the jewelry industry from mine to retail.
It all starts at home. At our offices and studio in New York City, we are committed to providing a workplace that upholds human rights regarding safe, fair, and non-discriminatory practices and conditions. We have always embraced and enjoyed a diverse team, and each Temple St. Clair employee is given a mandate to integrate these best practices within the framework of every individual’s job responsibilities.
We have worked with many of our sourcing and manufacturing partners in the US and across the globe for years, if not decades. We actively communicate to all our business partners, old and new, our expectation that at every touch point full human rights policies and responsible practices are adhered to, including unjust labor practices, from forced labor to human trafficking. As jewelers, we must pay exacting attention to the process of identifying precious metal and gemstone vendors who demonstrate a verifiable commitment to a transparent supply chain that respects human rights and responsible environmental practices.
At Temple St. Clair, maintaining the highest possible standard of gold sourcing is extremely important to us. All our gold and alloys, including silver and copper are sourced from Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) or other responsibly certified suppliers.
Our sources include recycled gold and Fair-trade Gold. Fair-trade Gold supports small-scale miners to receive a fair deal for their hard work, as well as protecting the environment, family, and community livelihoods.
Learn moreAt Temple St. Clair, we are known for our use of an array of colored gemstones. We are extremely discerning when it comes to the color and quality of our gems. We have a very high rejection rate in our procurement of gems, choosing each gem individually for cut, color, saturation, brilliance, and minimal to no treatment.
When sourcing, colored gemstones are often difficult to trace, since most originate from small-scale, artisanal mines. While verifying provenance can be challenging, Temple St. Clair requires its gem suppliers to identify the country of origin or probable country of origin, and to disclose any form of treatment on every gemstone that we use. Gemstones provided to us are sent out to be laboratory tested on a cyclical basis.
Transparency around gem treatments is particularly necessary since certain treated gems may require special care; we adhere to U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Guidelines to provide our clients with the information needed to protect their gems for a lifetime.
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Treatments for gemstones such as heating, are accepted industry wide. At Temple St. Clair, we allow as little treatment as possible to our gems; we never use gemstones treated with chemicals, radiation, or other unnatural forms of color treatment. For that reason, you will not find certain gems in our offerings such as blue topaz (always radiated) or colored quartz (artificially dyed). At most, we accept heat treatment to stabilize color (typical for sapphires and many tourmalines), heat to enhance color (typical for all tanzanite) or mild natural oil application (primarily for emeralds). Whenever possible, we use gems with no treatment whatsoever. Our signature blue moonstone is an example of a gem that is not treated in any way.
For specific information on the care and treatment of the gemstones we use, please see The A to Z of TSC Gems.
Temple St. Clair diamonds are 100% traceable and ethically sourced.
At Temple St. Clair we use only natural, untreated, Kimberley Process certified diamonds. Our diamonds are conflict-free and sourced only from suppliers that adhere to the guidelines established by the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). Our suppliers must participate in our vendor approval program that requires signed agreements confirming that all diamonds presented to us for purchase are Kimberley Process guaranteed. In addition, our suppliers—as with all our partners—must pledge to comply with our high standards for human rights and fair labor practices.
Along with larger leaders in the jewelry sector, we recognize that it is vital for us to come to terms with the significant risks associated with the extracting, trading, handling, and exporting of minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (CAHRAs). CAHRA’s are identified based primarily on human rights threats associated with labor conditions, abusive governance, conflict, or mineral flows where undeclared high-risk sources may enter a supply chain. Accordingly, we have implemented a thorough risk-assessment management system for responsible sourcing of minerals from these areas and have established policies that we widely disseminate and incorporate in agreements with suppliers. We continue to research and communicate with other organizations such as the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) as we strive to go even beyond the Kimberley Process to ensure the quality of our sourcing.
An additional challenge within the diamond industry is synthetic diamonds. Synthetic diamonds have made their way into the supply chain of even the most reliable suppliers. At our home office, we have acquired instruments for testing diamonds to ensure that no synthetic diamonds make their way undetected into our jewels; we test every gem ourselves adding this additional layer of security and assurance to our customers.
Temple St. Clair was founded in Florence, Italy and has worked with Florentine master goldsmiths, setters, chiselers, and engravers since the 1980’s. As Temple St. Clair has expanded, we continue to seek out some of the greatest artisanal hands worldwide. We have extended our reach to other jewelry centers in Italy; to Italian goldsmiths who have set up workshops in Thailand; and to individual craftsmen in Sri Lanka (ancient Ceylon). Each of these countries has a rich tradition of fine gold work. We have also brought some work home to the United States; many of our chains are made domestically.
Temple St. Clair is now headquartered in New York City. Being a U.S. based company, we follow U.S. importation and product disclosure regulations for all our jewelry. According to U.S. customs and importation guidelines, Country of Origin of a finished piece of jewelry is defined by the country “where a piece undergoes substantial transformation”, meaning where a piece becomes a ring, earring, pendant etc. An individual pendant may include an 18K gold angel coin made in Florence but if that coin is made into a ring or pendant in Sri Lanka, the country of origin is Sri Lanka. The same applies to a jewel with a gemstone: for example, we send a beautiful green tourmaline from Namibia to Florence to make a ring; the resulting country of origin of the ring will be Italy where it is made, not where the gem is from.
Our goldsmith partners in Italy, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the United States are like family to us. We have known and worked with them for decades. We visit the workshops regularly to review our expectations and to communicate our vision. Each one of our goldsmiths knows, respects and is proud to fulfill our uncompromising demand for quality. Together we strive to maintain the millennia-old, cross-cultural traditions of fine jewelry while seeking to define leadership in responsible practices for the future. We have supported many of our manufacturers in successfully completing Responsible Jewellery Council certification.
To validate COO for finished jewelry, TSC has a system in place that includes the following measures: (a) Imported product is processed by Overton & Co., America’s oldest operating Customs brokerage, (b) a COO tag is firmly attached to imported TSC merchandise when shipped, and (c) TSC’s senior management team regularly conducts site visits to its manufacturers to observe the work in progress.
We are committed to monitoring and improving our environmental performance, reducing environmental impacts, incorporating environmental factors into business decisions, and increasing employee awareness and training. The same attention to detail that we apply in the design process is brought to bear on every aspect of our operation, so that our actions can match our values. We have established rigorous environmental goals that comply with and exceed all relevant regulatory requirements.
In practice, this means that we want to reduce our reliance on plastic. We have are eliminated the use of plastic in our shipping materials by choosing alternatives for bubble wrap and other plastic lined materials. We actively request that vendors eliminate plastic and styrofoam from their packaging when they ship to us. When we do need to use plastic, we seek to treat it carefully as reusable material. We are currently sampling small compostable “plastic” bags for jewelry storage.
As far as our daily practices in the offices and studio, we are moving towards changing our daily behavior and habits to reduce our own individual impact - from replacing a plastic water system with a Berkey Water Filter that sustainably filters tap water to eliminating the use of single use plastic food utensils and containers. We are reaching out to urge outside food vendors to move to recyclable and compostable containers. We are examining all paper-packaging materials to make sure they are made from recyclable or compostable materials. At the same time, we are generally moving to reduce use of paper in favor of keeping purely digital files. We also manage our studio’s energy consumption with attention to temperature control and an eye toward supplying all the required elements of our work – such as AC units, copiers and printers, kitchen appliances, etc. – with efficient and environmentally friendly products wherever possible.
Given its carbon intensity, we restrict our transportation to necessary trips only, and when we can, we rely on e-mail or video conferencing to communicate with our extended network of vendors, artisans, and clients around the world. When local travel is required, TSC employees make every effort to travel on foot, use public transportation or bicycles. Just as with our office devices, when we must rent or lease vehicles, we opt for ‘green' vehicles whenever possible.