Pearls of Australia partners with Everledger in Provenance Proof blockchain platform

In a world-first, Pearls of Australia and Everledger add blockchain technology to the romance of pearls.

Caroline Langham, left, and daughter Elouise, with Pearls of Australia jewellery authenticated by a new blockchain ledger. Picture: Colin Murty

When, one day, Caroline Langham passes down her pearl jewellery to daughter Elouise, it won’t just be her stories of a holiday to Cygnet Bay in WA’s Kimberley Region that will be part of its history.

Elouise will also inherit a blockchain authentication that will prove its provenance and ownership beyond any doubt.

In a world first, Pearls of Australia, and its Cygnet Bay pearl farm, has partnered with pioneering Australian company Everledger, following a global search, to create the Provenance Proof digital platform, the first blockchain ledger for pearls.

“When you buy such a significant item, there is the thought that Elly will get it one day, and she will get all the knowledge of where it’s from,” Langham tells The Australian.

“Everything now is digital, so we can access it. It’s not a paper trail that will get lost, it’s there forever and gives that longevity.”

For Pearls of Australia managing director James Brown, a third-generation pearl farmer at his family’s Cygnet Bay pearl farm, this step into the digital realm was an add-on that he knew today’s conscious consumer would embrace.

“There’s still no way of tracking a Broome pearl through the wholesale market,” Brown tells The Australian, adding that chemical enhancement of pearls is now standard practice in the wholesale market.

“It’s physically impossible, unless a jeweller or consumer is lucky enough to buy direct from the farm.”

With Australian saltwater pearls still considered globally among the world’s best, rated for both their natural beauty and sustainable farming practices, provenance is increasingly crucial in the local pearl industry.

There are now barely a handful of Australian-owned farms still in operation following the near-decimation of the industry in the mid-2000s due to a mystery disease affecting the oysters, followed soon after by the global financial crisis.

Pearls of Australia managing director James Brown, who has spearheaded the new partnership with Everledger to create the Provenance Proof digital platform. Picture: Colin Murty

Rather than tagging pearls with codes or microscopically etching them, the pearls are scanned to the highest degree and full descriptors added to a digital dossier.

Everledger founder and chief executive Leanne Kemp started the company in 2015, “to build a platform of provenance to enable traceability of some of the most opaque supply chains from source of mine to the market”, she tells The Australian, noting its work in gemstones.

“This conscious consumer often asks the question of themselves, but it isn’t necessarily verbalised: Where does it come from? What is the truthful story of this object?”

While many gemstones have deeply problematic supply chains, such as Africa’s “blood diamonds”, Australian pearls offer a more sustainable story that is worth celebrating — and authenticating.

“We layer in not only the object and traceability, but also the ESG (environmental, social and governance) sustainability development goals and greenhouse gas emissions calculations.

“We romanticise a lot about the treasures of mother earth. To a certain extent we are also now facing the realities of our exploitation.

“Pearls are the guardians of the ocean. It’s a live organism, the shell is used and refactored in different ingredients, ground down to mica equivalent for lipsticks and cosmetics, you’ve got pearl meat itself – there’s no waste when it comes to pearls. Yet it’s a mollusc cleaning the ocean at the same time.”

Brown is excited to bridge this gap between the romanticism of pearls with cutting-edge technology.

“Pearls should go into families, stay with them and be handed down through their family and really become their story,” he said.

“That to me has been one of the most satisfying things about being a pearl producer.

“Being able to add this type of technology for people who want to do that is obviously a really big win.

“I am convinced it will become part of the pearling industry. And I genuinely hope it’s our collaboration that gets it through.”