Material
At Maren Jewelery we use a carefully selected range of sustainable materials to create jewelery that impresses not only with its beauty, but also with its ethical and ecological production. Our philosophy is based on the fact that luxury and responsibility can go hand in hand.
The problem of the conventional jewelry industry is all too well known: exploitation of people and nature, environmental pollution and ethically questionable practices. We believe it is time to resist this paradigm.
Our solution is simple yet effective: we rely on recycled gold and silver as well as synthetic eco-diamonds. This way we can ensure that our jewelry looks good not only on you, but also on our planet.
Our 18 carat recycled real gold is processed in Germany and offers the highest quality and durability. By using recycled gold, we minimize our environmental footprint and help reduce the negative impacts of gold mining.
Our diamonds do not come from questionable sources, but are produced in laboratories. These lab-grown diamonds are not only conflict-free, but also environmentally friendly as they do not require harmful mining processes.
In addition, we are committed to using sustainable materials for our packaging to further minimize our ecological footprint.
At Maren Jewelery we firmly believe that beauty should not come at the expense of people and nature. That's why we rely on sustainable materials and transparent manufacturing processes so that you can wear our jewelry with a clear conscience.
Jewelry by material
faqs about our jewelry materials
What are the benefits of recycling gold?
Recycling gold avoids the mining and consumption of new, finite resources, because many production waste or old throwaway goods already contain enough gold to be processed for reuse.
Since gold can be melted down again and again without loss and reused, recycling gold is an environmentally friendly and humane alternative.
Gold mining is not only dangerous and harmful to the health of all miners, but is unfortunately often carried out by children and heavily pollutes our waters, soil and air through the use of cyanide and mercury.
The WWF, as well as the Save the Rainforest Association considers Recycling Gold to be the most sustainable form of gold extraction and processing. 550 times less CO2 and 8.9 times less water are used than with newly mined gold. In addition, recycling gold can prevent tons of toxic mining waste from leaching into our water, people being displaced due to mining or the deforestation of forests that are important for our biodiversity.
Since 48.6% of gold demand is due to demands from the jewelry industry, choosing recycled gold can make a significant difference: just imagine if all jewelry manufacturers used recycled gold.
What does the gold recycling process at Maren Jewelery look like?
For the recycled gold that we use for our jewelry at Maren Jewelry, we work closely with our partner C.Hafner refinerytogether who carry out the gold recycling process for us.
We hand over all of our valuable, collected gold residues, which were created from castings, filing waste or polishing dust, to C.Hafner so that they can be melted down with other scrap material. To do this, the scrap material is first weighed and then melted so that the precious metal is homogenized and can then be poured into bars.
Samples are then taken from these bars and quartered with lead. The lead absorbs the precious metals in the crucible and then evaporates in the heat. What remains is the precious metal grain. This grain is then hammered and rolled. Only now does the actual separation process begin: the separation or separation of the precious metals. The cuttings dissolve in aqua regia. There, the various precious metals contained in the scrap are separated from each other and can be recovered pure: palladium, platinum and also gold.
At the end of the gold-sheathing process there is pure gold sponge. This is melted down and granulated and the result is impressive: recycled fine gold with 99.99 percent purity.
What are synthetic diamonds?
Synthetic diamonds are diamonds grown in a laboratory.
They are identical to natural diamonds in terms of appearance, hardness and chemical composition.
The advantage of synthetic diamonds, however, lies in their sustainable and humane extraction, as this neither pollutes our environment nor puts people in crisis areas at risk.
There are two techniques for producing synthetic diamonds: the CVD process and the HTHP process.
At the Chemical Vapor Disposition (CVD) Diamonds are created in a plasma that is as hot as a small sun on Earth. Our partner Fenix Diamond uses this technique. Diamond Foundry also grows using the CVD process and produces novel plasma reactors that generate such heat that atoms attach to the natural diamond crystal lattice of a diamond, which is used as a basis in this process. In this process, more and more atoms are stacked on a thin diamond foundation and thus expand the unique crystal structure of the seed diamond. Atom by atom, a pure, decorative synthetic rough diamond grows into the size of a gemstone.
HTHP stands for High temperature, high pressure. In this process, which is based on the natural formation process of diamonds, graphite-2H is placed in growth cells, which are subjected to pressure of up to 70,000 bar on three sides in so-called cubic presses. Graphite-2H is a natural form of the chemical element carbon, which has a hexagonal crystal structure similar to a honeycomb. The inside of the growth cell is first equipped with catalysts and seed diamonds and heated to around 1600-1700 degrees Celsius. Under these conditions, the graphite changes in a physical-chemical process and the black powder grows into a transparent diamond. Our partner Swiss Diamond Vision uses the HPHT process to produce lab-grown synthetic Eco Diamonds.
Are artificial, lab-grown diamonds sustainable?
The process of growing diamonds synthetically in the laboratory ensures that no people in crisis areas were endangered in order to extract the diamonds.
Although laboratory-grown diamonds are just as pure and unique as natural diamonds, their origin is 100% guaranteed:
Our synthetic diamonds that we use for Maren Jewelery come from Switzerland, India or America. All of our gemstones are 100% conflict-free.
In addition, diamonds grown in the laboratory are resource-efficient. If 1ct diamond is mined in the traditional way, up to 200 tons of earth have to be moved. Moving these masses requires an incredible amount of energy.
Our synthetic diamonds are significantly more environmentally friendly than natural diamonds.
They consume 4,79,19 times less CO2 than normal diamonds. The high energy required for the breeding process is also problematic, but this is taken into account by our partner Diamond Foundry, which, like Maren Jewellery, is a CO2-neutral company..