What were the main reasons for Royal Touch wanting to join the RJC?
Royal Touch LLC is a leading manufacturer of fine gemstones and jewelry. We are widely known to be industry leaders in our specific sector and are highly respected among its peers for our personal and business ethics and dedication to a sustainable future. Sustainability starts with us as individuals, for our family, our people, our business, our customers and ultimately our environment and the way we conduct our business. Doing well by doing good. So no “green washing” its really within our DNA of the company and the team.Therefore, to highlight our commitment and legitimacy with current and future customers, we joined the RJC given the fact they are well recognized by the industry and beyond. There are not that many colored gemstone companies member and certified by RJC so we are happy to be at the forefront.
How is Royal Touch implementing sustainability into the heart of their business strategy?
We have divided our sustainability efforts in three categories according to the Three P’s, basically adhering though to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. 1. People: Involve and engage anyone who is interacting with us directly or indirectly in our entire supply chain including our own staff, our clients and vendors. That includes matters like equal rights and diversity in for instance gender and empowering people. Of course safety and security matters are important for our staff as well. We are highly involved in charity in India and we are expanding those efforts to Tanzania as well. 2. Planet: Responsible for the environment by using renewable energy as much as possible, striving to be a Carbon Neutral group by 2030, looking at our footprint and educate our people on these matters as well. 3. Product: Making sure that our products are sourced and manufactured according to local and international laws and standards and conducting business in a legitimate and responsible way. So making sure that for instance no child labour is involved, no smuggling, no conflict minerals, and also looking for beneficiaries of local communities.
Have you got any exciting projects or upcoming work you would like to highlight?
Our continued efforts to further consolidate our sustainability goals also include giving it back to the society. We work with several institutions in India and Africa towards betterment of education and life for the locals. A few examples to mention are:
1. Free Meals to underprivileged
2. Books for Libraries
3. Sponsoring Students
4. Women Empowerment
We are looking at a new charity project we have thought about in Tanzania, so that is something exciting to look forward too. On the women empowerment initiatives we are soon planning to launch a product line with recyclable gold and diamonds by women working on this from start to finish. For women by women so to say.
What’s next for Royal Touch?
We want to position and strengthen ourselves as global leaders in the world of gemstones and jewelry creating benchmarks for our peers to follow by keeping strict goals. We follow an inclusive agenda involving all stakeholders. In line with global efforts on managing the impact of climate change as much as humanity can, we want to contribute our fair share. So becoming Carbon Neutral as a group step by step with measured actions in the coming years is a concrete plan. It will take time though, it’s a process, a path we will walk together, we need to start somewhere.
Another important part of our sustainability strategy is gender diversity, actually in line with an important part of RJC’s work as well. We already have for instance a very large population of women amongst our teams worldwide and we want to emphasize and recognize the importance of that strategy and especially advocate equal pay, career development, promotions, education etc.
Plus make these topics part of our regular team and management meetings as well as with our customers and vendors to create a ripple effect in the sector. We also aim to step up on the network and events of organizations like the RJC and CIBJO for instance. Looking forward to meet the new executive director of RJC, Melanie C. Grant, soon as well.
Last but not least we are very busy with the RJC certification process, that is work at hand and we have engaged RSM Astute Consulting company in India to help us on the process as such. They have a lot of experience with RJC certification and we are convinced we will have a smooth certification as the guidelines and workbooks of RJC are very clear. Internally we have LuxuryFintech helping us out as well. So we really put our money were our mouth is.
