At Isle of Wight Pearl sustainability isn’t just a goal – it’s woven into everything we do. From the oceans that nurture our pearls to the local ingredients in our café and the beautiful island we call home, we have a true connection to the environment.
Over the past few years, we’ve made significant steps to reduce our environmental impact. Julia, Product Director says, “We’ve been working on a number of exciting sustainability projects that have recently come to life – from launching completely plastic-free packaging and recycling our metals, to introducing our pre-loved jewellery programme. Looking ahead, we’re exploring ways to further reduce air miles and packaging in transit.”
And of course, our pearls themselves are a natural testament to the power of nature. Oysters and mussels – the clever creatures behind our pearls – actively help clean and balance marine ecosystems by promoting water clarity and biodiversity.
This Earth Day, we celebrate not only the beauty of nature, but also the responsibility we share to protect it.
Our Pearls
Protecting the environment is at the heart of our family business – our pearls are organic, carbon-neutral gems and our close relationship with our pearl farmers ensures we get the finest, real pearls from our suppliers.
For beautiful pearls to grow the water needs to be clean, PH Neutral, and pollution-free which is why we work closely with our pearl farmers to ensure the water, and the land around it, is looked after and free from contamination. What’s so fantastic is this looked-after, clean water has other benefits too; it helps new areas of biodiversity flourish and creates some truly incredible areas of natural beauty.
Did you know? Where dynamite and cyanide fishing are still common, pearl farmers will thankfully launch armed patrol boats to stop this toxic and dangerous tradition.
Our Packaging
We have taken great care over recent years to reduce our carbon footprint and a big part of this has been reducing our packaging and making it recyclable. All our packaging is now made from 100% recycled and recyclable paper. Our boxes are thinner than they used to be which means less volume and energy is being used for production and shipping.
All our pearls come in, as standard, a lovely plastic-free pouch which has recently been redesigned and is now made entirely from organic cotton. Our carrier bags are made from 100% recyclable paper and come with an organic cotton ribbon – you just need to remove the ribbon before you pop it into your recycling. The ribbon makes a lovely hair tie or bow for the top of a present!
Our Carbon Footprint
We are proud to be a certified Carbon Neutral company and work with our Natural Capital Partners to offset the carbon footprint of our pearls, jewellery, and packaging by helping fund green energy projects around the world. Read more about what we are supporting right now here.
Our Materials
The materials we use always go through stringent in-house quality control to ensure they will last and can be passed down from generation to generation. We have just made an exciting change to our best-selling Tassel bracelets which now have a colourful thread made from 100% recycled plastic bottles.
On average, 300m of our colourful thread is made from just one recycled plastic bottle, making waste a great new source of material for us to use. It takes 3.5 meters to make a bracelet, so one recycled plastic bottle makes 87 bracelets!
You can find this eco thread in our Tassel, Hoop and Lisa Le Brocq bracelets.
Our Pre-Loved Scheme
You can now shop reconditioned Isle of Wight Pearl jewellery in-store and we’ll give you a voucher in return for the Isle of Wight Pearl jewellery you no longer wear so you can purchase something new and pass items onto someone else! A bargainous way to shop pre-loved pearls!
