New partner Responsible Gold

The Agreement Responsible Gold gets a new partner. Recycling company Coolrec is joining this collaboration framework. This subsidiary of Renewi (formerly Van Gansewinkel) recovers gold and other resources from discarded devices.

The Dutch gold sector is making a joint effort to promote a responsible international gold sector. Coolrec supports that effort by signing this agreement that strives after improving the observance of human rights as well as ecological and biodiversity standards. Some of the risks in that field are too complicated to tackle for an individual company. The agreement will make a joint approach possible for industry-wide issues.

The Dutch gold sector

The Netherlands is a minor player in the global gold industry. Here it is mainly used for jewellery, electronics and coins. Europe accounts for 2 percent of global gold consumption. A quantity of almost 4300 tons is marketed every year. Of that quantity 66% is new gold and 34% comes from recycling.

Getting involved

The gold agreement has officially been in force since 19 June 2017 and it has a duration of five years. As a new partner to the agreement, Coolrec can still link up with the plans that parties are developing jointly for the coming period.

Coolrec

With nine locations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France, Coolrec offers an integrated, international network for processing WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) at the highest level. Coolrec recycles electric

appliances and electronic products into high-quality secondary raw materials.

Arjen Wittekoek, Coolrec's managing director: "Waste equipment consists largely of valuable materials. With the aid of our innovative technology we can recover these specific materials, such as precious metals, and make them available as resource for the manufacture of new products. Our circular attitude and objective here is for instance to supply gold from discarded electronics for the manufacture of new electronics. With this process we protect the world from pollution, we preserve the finite resources and we enable our customers to achieve their sustainability objectives. This is where the philosophy of the sustainable gold agreement fits in seamlessly. Consequently, we are proud of this circular cooperation with SER (The Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands)”.