For pretty much everyone getting married, rings are a beautiful, significant, and enduring part of the ritual – as well as something you’ll literally carry with you every day for the rest of your relationship, if not your life.

However, as many folks know, the actual materials which comprise this symbol of love and commitment – the metal and the stones – often come from less than savory sources.  And if you’re a person of conscience, knowing that you’re sporting a product of ecological devastation, slave labor, and munitions exchange on your finger probably tarnishes the luster more than just a little bit.

Enter The Clarity Project.  Their goals:

Create beautiful, timeless jewelry to match the top jewelers, improve the quality of life for miners and their communities, and build a new type of sustainable business that can make our first two goals possible.

The Clarity Project works to source fair trade gems and minerals, and then channels all profits back into the mining communities.  As they say on their website:

By fully leveraging diamonds, gems, and precious metals – which have little intrinsic value – with innovative and effective non-profits building schools and restoring land in mining communities, we realized we could redefine the underlying value of a diamond. There was a possibility to create a ring that couples would feel proud to buy and wear, featuring a diamond that would provide ongoing support for those miners who have been marginalized for so long.

This is a wonderful example of anything is possible, and, I think, utterly reflective of the healing and transformational power of love.  It was love and compassion for the world – and for people living halfway around the world – which led to the creation of The Clarity Project, and their commitment to taking responsibility for every aspect of their lives.

Not to mention the fact that their jewelry is GORGEOUS!

So check ’em out!