Tiffany & Co., a New York-based global luxury jeweler, was founded in 1836. For the last 25 years, it has been a leader in sustainable luxury. Tiffany & Co. has maintained this status by sectioning its strategic sustainability efforts into three sections: product, people, and planet. By undertaking a sustainability materiality analysis every five years, it has been able to refine its responsible environmental and social approach. Tiffany & Co. released its 2021 sustainability report to reflect its efforts to reach measurable sustainability goals by 2025.

Product

Within the 2021 report, Tiffany & Co. expressed how its goals for the sustainability of their products relies on traceability, material sourcing, and craftsmanship, and design and innovation. Th company has made strides toward its goals through the vertical integration model. Tiffany & Co. owns and operates its diamond polishing workshops such as its facilities in Belgium, Mauritius, Botswana, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. It also has its own gemological laboratory in New York and five jewelry manufacturing workshops in the United States. Altogether, this ensures supply-chain traceability and that its high standards are being met. According to the 2021 report, the company “achieved historic levels of precious metals traceability: over 99% of all gold, silver, and platinum used in its] jewelry was traced to a known mine or a known recycled source.” Tiffany & Co. is committed to its craftsmanship and material sourcing goals and the vertical integration model upholds that standard as it gives the company a strong chain of custody over raw materials, direct oversight of our manufacturing and a platform to help improve global standards and conditions.” The company only hires and trains skilled craftspeople and provides a living wage to all employees to guarantee high-standard operations. It stands firm on the belief that truly fine craftsmanship evolves from social and environmental integrity at every step of the sourcing and crafting process. Tiffany & Co. used the power of its craftsmanship to donate $6.5 million to The Nature Conservancy by auctioning off the first-ever Patek Phillippe Ref. 5711 Nautilus watch. Tiffany & Co. has devoted itself to finding ways to integrate sustainability into its design process while staying true to its iconic design aesthetic by innovating its product and production processes to run sustainably in the future.

People

Within the People sector, Tiffany & Co. focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), pay, benefits, and well-being, and growth and engagement. One of its 2025 measurable goals is to be recognized as the most inclusive luxury brand with a diverse and highly engaged workforce that’s powered by an inclusive and innovative culture. The company makes advances toward reaching this goal by increasing its representation of women throughout the company as well as its commitment to gender quality and equity. In 2021, Tiffany & Co was named among the Top 100 Companies for Executive Women by Seramount. It not only celebrates women but is also committed to celebrating and advocating for love and equality. Tiffany & Co. has provided long-standing support for LGBTQIA+ equality and was the first luxury jeweler to feature a same-sex couple in its advertisement. In 2019, the company signed the Open to All Pledge, which makes a commitment to maintaining a welcoming and safe environment for all - including employees, visitors, suppliers, and clients, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, immigration status, religion, or disability. In 2021, the company continued prioritizing DEI through its Talent Acquisition, Management, and Development programs and processes by identifying opportunities that could increase diversity within hiring, employee retention, and promotion process. The company successfully launched the Interview Brilliance Pilot program, which developed company-wide standards for inclusive hiring practices that helps integrate diverse candidate slates, interview panels, and teams throughout the company on a global scale. The 2025 sustainability goals regarding pay, benefits, and well-being include an evaluation of benefits, pay programs, and policies, where necessary, and modifying them to suit the rapidly changing demands of the workforce worldwide. The company strives to provide comprehensive benefits for their diverse workforce and to provide employees in developing countries with a livable wage for the past decade. The company achieves this through its Living Wage Program, where they work with researchers to determine a location-specific living wage. For its growth and engagement goals, the company adheres to a “Leaders at All Levels” philosophy, which is based on the perspective of leadership as a mindset and provides self-nominated opportunities for the development to all employees regardless of role, function, or tenure. As stated in the report, “25% of Tiffany & Co. employees participated in these growth and engagement opportunities. TiffanyU is a corporate University platform that was launched in 2020 to provide on-demand learning, leadership, and management development programs, peer-to-peer social learning, and LinkedIn learning with more than 16,000 micro-learning courses in seven different languages. In 2021, the company expanded TiffanyU’s programs to include micro-aggression and inclusive decision-making learnings. 69% of the company’s total population was active on the platform.

Planet

The planet section of the sustainability goals focuses on net-zero emissions, protecting biodiversity, and protecting our planet. Tiffany and Co. is committed to protecting the natural world by taking bold actions. As stated in the report, “Prioritizing the use and generation of renewable electricity is a key, measurable component of ongoing efforts to achieve net zero emissions.” Tiffany & Co. set the goal of obtaining 100% of its global electricity from renewable sources by 2023. In 2021, it relied on 89% of its global electricity from clean, renewable sources, which included solar panels. Since 2006, Tiffany & Co. has us solar power and now on-site solar power in five of their locations: the Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Rhode Island, and two locations in New Jersey. The company is committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Net-Zero standard for setting short- and long-term company-wide emission reductions. The company has achieved great results as 95% of its carbon footprint comes from Scope 3 emissions, emissions from assets not owned or controlled by the company. Reaching the net-zero emission goal requires decarbonization from the entire value chain. At Tiffany & Co. practices that support biodiversity are celebrated by protecting vulnerable natural resources, rebuilding ecosystems, and transforming supply chains. To help halt deforestation, the company ensures that all wood and paper-based packaging, marketing collateral, and catalogs are made from sustainable sources. In 2021, 100% of its catalogs, marketing collateral, and packaging were sustainably sourced and contained a high percentage of recycled contents. Tiffany & Co. believes investing in nature is investing in climate. Due to that, it supports organizations that remediate abandoned mining sites to clean up polluted landscapes and waterways and preserve marine and coral reef life. In December 2021, the company donated $6.5 million to The Nature Conservancy (TNC). In efforts to protect our planet and its inhabitants, Tiffany & Co. donated 100% of the profits from the Tiffany Save the Wild collection to the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN), which provides critical funds for more than 450 conservation projects to protect animals such as elephants, lions, and rhinos. At the end of 2021, the company had donated more than $10 million to the WCN. Tiffany & Co. also committed around $6 million to ocean conservation through organizations such as Blue Nature Alliance and Oceans.

Article by Gabriela Gonzalez, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Designer, PhotoBook Magazine

Tiffany & Co., a New York-Based Global Luxury Jeweler, is a Leader in Sustainability