ABOUT US
Our Mission
Epoch Sustainable Jewellery's mission is to create objects that start a conversation about e-waste, recycling, consumption, and environmental sustainability.
We do this by crafting one-of-a-kind, high quality jewellery and accessories that are predominantly composed of recycled or salvaged materials, and produced in Australia under environmentally sustainable and ethical conditions.
The Back Story
My name is Susannah, and I am a contemporary jewellery and object designer from Sydney, Australia.
The Epoch Collection is a reboot of past work with salvaged computer circuit boards that I first started back in 1999 during my design studies at the University of NSW.
After the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2012 and all of my stockists folded, I put aside working with circuit boards for a while. I had developed as a jeweller, and thought that I should now be working exclusively with precious metals and gemstones instead of junk.
However, in time I came to see the darker side of the jewellery industry - the highly toxic mining processes, the low pay and lack of labour standards, and the excessive marketing budgets devoted to objects which are not at all crucial for human existence.
Every now and then, I would open up my old box of circuit boards and I gradually found myself being inexorably drawn back to these beautiful and intriguing objects.
In a post-pandemic world, and watching the growing influence of a new generation of environmental activists, I now feel that my original concept for jewellery made from industrial discards is now equally, if not more, relevant today than it was 20 years ago.
I have now returned to this unique jade-green material with fresh eyes, crafting a new series of one-off objects in order to start conversations and spread the word about the issues surrounding e-waste.