Mapungubwe Gold Rhino

Any golden white elephants—or rhinos—in your house?

In recent days, the gold price is breaking record after record. Add to that the somewhat weaker rand, and your jewelry box is starting to look like, well, a gold mine.

If you decide to take some profits on a rarely worn bracelet, as I recently did, the environment will benefit even more than your bank account. In November, dozens of South African corporations released data on their greenhouse-gas emissions as part of the South African Carbon Disclosure Project. They should be commended for their effort. Knowing your emissions is a critical first step toward reducing them. Two of the companies were gold miners, and their disclosure came as a shock to me. For each ounce of gold produced by Harmony Gold Mining, 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. Yes, read it again, 2.1 tons of CO2 for an ounce of gold. If you don’t believe me, see here.

AngloGold Ashanti had significantly lower figures, probably because it is less dependent on deep underground mines in South Africa, but the average of the two companies still comes out at 1.14 tons per troy ounce. This is not far off from a figure I got using data for the South African gold mining industry as a whole in the year 2000, 1.3 tons of CO2 per troy ounce for electricity usage alone.

Using the 1.14 figure, by my calculations, I would have to drive my Honda Jazz from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back about three times to emit the carbon dioxide contained in a Krugerrand. (And I’m leaving aside the water pollution, local air pollution, and landscape scarring that gold mining causes.)

This might give you some pause when your anniversary next comes up, but it does make the current high gold price a perfect opportunity to recycle some gold and prevent further mining emissions. I found a medal that had no real sentimental value and my wife found a clunky bracelet that she hadn’t worn in more than 20 years. Yesterday, a gold and coin dealer paid me more than R4,000 for the two, thereby saving 783 kilograms of CO2 using to the Anglo/Harmony average. It was like buying a carbon offset, except I got paid for it. I’m considering going back with a pair of silver candlesticks.

I remember that driving all the way to Bedfordview just to sell a little gold gave me a twinge of green guilt. Not anymore. I now realize I could have driven all the way to Bulawayo.