Last month, we told you about the release of Tarnished Gold: assessing the jewelry industry's progress on ethical sourcing of metals. In essence, Tarnished Gold is a report card that evaluates the progress jewelers have made in pursuit of cleaner sources of precious metals.

Some jewelers saw the first report and realized they needed to do more, and tell us more about what they were already doing. So they sent us additional information and assurance about their efforts.

Yesterday we issued an updated report, which notes further advances by four large jewelers and a dozen smaller companies. Eleven small jewelry companies now deserve an "A" rating for their efforts.

For more information:

UPDATE (2/11): The scorecard and grade for Jostens has been corrected on 2/11/10, to reflect their signing of the Bristol Bay Protection Pledge.

When consumers buy jewelry, they don't want their purchase to underwrite environmental destruction; they don't want to support throwing people out of their homes; they don't want their wedding rings to cause the pollution of drinking water.

But consumers have little reliable assurance about the origins of their jewelry purchases. 

Although there have been several steps in the right direction in the six years since the No Dirty Gold campaign was launched.

Today we released Tarnished Gold? Assessing the jewelry industry's progress on the ethical sourcing of metals.  It evaluates the efforts made by jewelers towards responsible sourcing of precious metals.  It is based on responses to a survey sent to the jewelers that had signed on to No Dirty Gold's Golden Rules of Responsible Mining by mid-February 2009, and ot other large jewelry retailers who sold jewelry worth more than $100 million.

This week Sears/Kmart, Blue Nile and Ultra Stores signed the No Dirty Gold campaign's "Golden Rules" for more responsible mining.

This brings the total number of jewelry retail signatories up to 60. Altogether, these jewelry retailers represent over $1.3 billion in annual US jewelry sales, or nearly a quarter of the total.