Green Wedding Rings

If you’ve decided to "go green" for your big day, a great place to start is with eco-friendly rings.

A highly respected resource for socially and ecologically responsibly sourced jewelry is greenKarat an online retailer that provides "green" certification and offers many unique products and services.

While greenKarat does sell many beautiful designed and customized pieces of green jewerly for cash, it also offers couples the opportunity to recycle gold for store credit or to reuse gold jewelry they already own by having it melted and stones reset. When reusing gold a $250 service charge is associated with each order (*note, not each ring). If enough gold is not received for a reused piece, greenKarat will provide the rest needed at market value.

A refreshingly unique offering is greenKarat's myKarat registry. You can create a registry on their website that invites family and friends to recycle old gold jewelry in your name. The accumulated value of the jewelry recycled earns the bride and groom a credit equal to 80% of the market value of the gold recycled. The store credit can then be used toward the purchase of any greenKarat jewerly. Credit earned beyond the cost of the new rings can be donated toward a charity of the couple’s choosing. greenKarat even offers a voluntary carbon offset contribution (or “tax” as they refer to it) that directly relates to the CO2 emissions from the production of each item purchased. Contributions are donated to Sustainable Travel International, a non-profit organization which meets the Gold Standard guidelines for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

*Note, if you choose to reuse gold, greenKarat must receive the jewelry 2 months before new the new rings are needed.