Case Study

Ayana Jade: Crafting Sustainable Luxury Through Responsible Innovation

Introduction

Ayana’s co-founder, Linda Achan, is a London-based entrepreneur and jewellery designer.
As a multi-disciplinary Business Strategist focused on responsible innovation - optimising value addition in natural resources, she was retained as a consultant on a Jadeite Resource project. The chairman (MSc Eng), a jade expert and metallurgist, noticed her love of stones and design. He invited her to have some jewellery made with the jade. When she couldn’t get the desired contemporary, elegant pieces made, she designed and made them herself and people would inquire about where they were bought. They were particularly intrigued by the range of colours available (not only the standard “apple green”); greens, whites, greys and reddish brown to complement all skin tones and jadeite - jade's association with protection and prosperity. This was the catalyst for the creation of Ayana Jade.

Background

Ayana Jade is a UK-based fine jewellery company. Our jewellery and accessories are designed and manufactured in the UK, and we are committed to ensuring sustainable luxury. We demonstrate that profit and purpose can coexist by embracing circular design principles and aligning with responsible innovation practices. This case study outlines how we implement responsible innovation in our business practices.

The traditional jewellery industry often relies on unsustainable practices, including sourcing gemstones from opaque sources and fast fashion – throw-away away cheap custom jewellery, which often ends up in landfill, thus contributing to environmental degradation. Ayana Jade was founded with a vision to disrupt this model by prioritising sustainability and responsible innovation at every stage. We set out to prove that sustainable, ethically sourced materials can be the foundation for profitability.

Our Approach to Responsible Innovation

A chance meeting with a Jade expert led the co-founder to investigate further and confirm that their mine was a source of conflict-free Grade A jadeite jade. We then created a series of designs incorporating recycled gold and silver to complement the ethical jade.

Our designs are intended as durable, timeless pieces that will eventually become heirlooms rather than disposable fashion.

We intended to design and manufacture jewellery and accessories using conflict-free Grade A jadeite jade (an extremely hard, durable gemstone) from a single-source mine with provenance and recycled gold and silver. Today, our designs prioritise durability and timelessness, creating valuable heirlooms, suitable for sensitive skin rather than disposable fashion.

Having sourced our key material, the next step was to find a manufacturer, preferably based in the UK whose values aligned with our own. They also needed to deal with and work with recycled gold and silver. We conducted considerable research and made plant visits until we found someone whose ethos and principles matched our own. Whilst they matched what we required, we were then put under their scrutiny as they also needed to approve us.

An important part of our research and development involved working with a design team to create and test several prototype pieces before production and releasing them for sale. A key element of our products involves the use of jade off-cuts, thereby ensuring that there is minimal waste. We are constantly in touch to review products and develop new ones as sales grow.

Impacts

Experience has shown that where there is a will, there is a way of doing supplier audits, certification tracking, and supply chain mapping. Increasingly, customers are concerned about ethical sources and the minimisation of waste in the things they buy. While some manufacturers may view these as a cost to the business, we have only seen them as helping to give us a competitive advantage.

Not only do we have products that our customers love, but they also have the confidence that we are minimising waste. Our story also acts as the background to our marketing and brand identity, which is growing daily. This has led to us being invited to run workshops and other activities to show younger generations and other organisations how a business can be run ethically, with little waste, and still be sustainable in its own right.

Just as a byline, we also aligned positively with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

SDG 4: Education: By providing knowledge sharing.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth: By supporting fair labour practices and sustainable economic development.
SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production: By minimising waste, using recycled materials, and promoting circular design.
SDG 17: Partnership: By collaboration with corporations across industry sectors including professional services, manfacturing, heritage, academia, creative, NGOS and government.