CIBJO’s Jewellery Supply Chain Committee presented the first edition of the Blue List to the 2026 CIBJO Congress in Vicenza on 7 September 2026, the final day of the Congress. The document defines sustainable as delivering integrated and lasting socioeconomic benefit, environmental protection and longevity; responsible as meeting internationally recognised standards; and ethical as current best practice on social responsibility in addition to those standards. Kele Mafole, who leads the committee, described the Blue List as a guidance document and named sustainability, responsible and ethical as the three terms that have caused the most confusion.
For gold refined into Good Delivery bars, the standards against which a responsible-sourcing claim is measured are set out in the LBMA Responsible Gold Guidance, which implements the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas. Conformance is a condition of remaining on the LBMA Good Delivery List, and an LBMA Responsible Gold Certificate is issued only to listed refiners that pass the annual responsible sourcing review, supported by independent assurance on their published compliance reporting. Adherence is enforced through LBMA’s Incident Review Process, which can end in removal from the List. Certification in the jewellery supply chain runs on separate instruments: the Responsible Jewellery Council’s Code of Practices and its Chain of Custody standard for precious metals. A counterparty testing a sourcing claim against a specific bar therefore works from the refiner’s current entry on the Good Delivery List, the assurance report published alongside that entry, and the mark, fineness and serial number recorded on the bar and on its weight list. The Blue List adds no document to that set, and no refiner holds a status under it.
CIBJO’s committee addressed terminology used in communication with jewellery customers. Accreditation for Good Delivery gold, and removal from it, sit with LBMA under the Good Delivery List Rules and the Responsible Gold Guidance.