About Us
Rapaport Fair Trade is the leading resource for socially conscious jewelry consumers and members of the jewelry and diamond trade. Our goal is to provide ethical education for jewelry suppliers, buyers, first time or seasoned diamond buyers, social activists, students, and anyone interested in jewelry, trends, and ethical luxury. Rapaport does not buy or sell diamonds on our own account. With a reputation built on leading information services, creating fair and efficient markets and increasing transparency in the diamond industry, it’s natural that Rapaport is the place to turn when you want to know where your diamond came from, or where you can get a piece of jewelry that is both high fashion and highly ethical.
Rapaport Fair Trade believes strongly in educating the industry, and hosts annual conferences in locations worldwide to discuss human rights and ethical sourcing issues.
Our Mission
- Ensure that diamonds, precious gems, and precious metals are not responsible for human rights abuses, violence, crime, or illegal environmental damage.
- Ensure that diamonds, precious gems, and precious metals become a force for sustainable development, positive growth, and empowerment in the communities from which they originate and at every point along the supply chain.
- Educate the diamond and jewelry industry, consumers, activists and students. Enable educated decisions regarding diamond, precious metal and jewelry purchases.
The Rapaport Group has been working to create a freer and fairer diamond industry for over three decades. The Rapaport Diamond Report was created in 1978 by a desire to create a more open and transparent diamond industry. This singular vision has shaped the goals and ethics of the entire Rapaport Group, and in particular Rapaport Fair Trade. As the industry and political climate have changed over the years, we have maintained the mission of a free, fair, open and transparent diamond industry at the heart of all our actions.
As a member of the original group that evolved the concept of the Kimberley Process (KP), Martin Rapaport, Chairman of the Rapaport Group, attended the first KP meeting in Kimberley, South Africa in 2000. Martin stayed active in the Process until 2010, at which point he resigned in protest of the system’s growing inefficacy. The Rapaport Group worked with USAID and DFID in the UK to establish and fund the first artisanal mining cooperatives in Sierra Leone. Rapaport Fair Trade is constantly searching for and evaluating partnerships with the private and public sector to create a better work environment and lifestyle for all those working along the diamond supply chain.