On May 16, Change.org, in support of EARTHWORKS No Dirty Gold Campaign, released a multipronged social media action against Costco. Change.org redeveloped an online petition calling for Costco to sign onto the Golden Rules principles that has since garnered over 27,000 signatures. Accompanying the morning’s petition blitz was a creative bomb of Costco’s Facebook page, where responsible gold mining activists changed their profile pictures in order to spell out No Dirty Gold on Costco’s Facebook homepage.
Costco often uses social media like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with its customers. This social medium is one of Costo’s most public faces. Likewise, Costco customers actively use Costco’s Facebook page to interact with the company they shop with. As Costco’s customers visited the company’s Facebook page that morning, many began to ask questions about all the No Dirty Gold messages that kept popping up. What’s with all these gold posts? and why is Costco buying dirty gold? were some of the common questions that everyday shoppers began to ask the company. We hope Costco will answer their customers questions by signing on to the Golden Rules.
Costco is one of only two of the top 10 major jewelry retailers that has not yet signed on to the Golden Rules. The Rules, a set of commitments to insure the retailers are purchasing gold that meets the social, human rights, and environmental criteria, have been adopted by Target, Tiffany & Co., Sears/Kmart and 70 other jewelry retailers.
We think Costco needs to act like an industry leader, not laggard, and to lead the way in demanding responsibly mined gold.