This is the fifth installment of our six-part Masters of Metamorphosis series, in which we look at corporations that have reinvented themselves in order to seize opportunities in the energy transition.
According to those who study consumer habits, millennials and Gen Zs are looking for two things when they go shopping: sustainability and individuality. One jewellery company is capturing hearts and wallets by offering both.
Pandora, launched as a family-run jewellery shop in Copenhagen in 1982, has grown to become the world’s largest jewellery maker, by pieces sold. And unlike much of its industry in recent years, Pandora’s star is rising. As competitors like Tiffany and Signet see diminishing returns, Pandora ended 2024 with 31.7 billion krone (US$4.5 billion) in annual revenue, representing 13% organic growth.
These figures reflect a major turnaround. In 2019, following several years of declining sales, Pandora embarked on a new strategy: to expand its product line beyond the luxury charm bracelets for which it had become famous and go all in on sustainability. It established three new priorities: to decarbonize, push circularity and promote a more diverse corporate culture.
Six years later, Pandora’s charms, which can be engraved and assembled to create personalized pieces, are just one element in its full palette of fine jewellery. And the company is aspiring to the highest sustainability standards in its field. Since 2021, it has used only lab-grown diamonds – to avoid concerns about blood diamonds and inhumane labour practices – and since 2024, exclusively gold and silver in recycled form.
According to Mads Twomey-Madsen, Pandora’s senior vice president of sustainability, the transition to recycled metals took four years to complete and required 100 additional staff: a relatively small investment for a company with some 37,000 employees worldwide.
More than 40 of Pandora’s suppliers – both smelters and producers of clasps and chains – had to change their processes to meet its new standards (which are issued by the Responsible Jewellery Council), but they were persuaded to do so by the volumes in question.
Pandora claims that its annual purchase of roughly 340 tons of recycled silver, sourced from electronics, silverware, manufacturing waste and old jewellery, accounts for some 6% of the total global market.
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The shift away from newly mined metals will reduce greenhouse gas emissions across its supply chain by 58,000 metric tons annually by the company’s estimates: roughly the equivalent of taking 6,000 gas-powered cars off the road. It’s also costing Pandora some US$10 million annually, largely in premiums paid to suppliers to help them adjust. It’s “a cost we are willing to absorb” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik told The New York Times last year.
While sustainability may be front of mind for younger buyers, Lacik admits that the average jewellery shopper is looking primarily at design and price. But even if customers weren’t clamouring for it, Pandora’s sustainability push has proven a sound business decision; according to its 2024 annual report, the company has grown by 45% since 2019. No doubt, others in the industry are watching with interest.
Naomi Buck is a Toronto-based writer.
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