Pandora opens $150 million Vietnam jewelry factory powered by renewable
energy
[October 02, 2026] By
HAU DINH and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) — Danish jewelry company Pandora has
opened the world’s largest fine-jewelry crafting facility in Vietnam, a
$150 million factory powered entirely by renewable electricity and using
100% recycled gold and silver.
The expansion highlights a broader challenge for the jewelry industry:
reducing the environmental footprint of precious metals while meeting
growing demand for jewelry. Using recycled gold and silver can reduce
the need for newly mined metals, but experts say making that shift
requires reliable supply chains and greater transparency.
The new facility in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam will produce up
to 60 million pieces of jewelry a year, increasing the company’s
manufacturing capacity by 50% while cutting its carbon footprint by 17%,
CEO Berta de Pablos-Barbier told The Associated Press.
“We are leading the way and we really hope that the rest follow,” she
said.
Pandora expands in Vietnam as manufacturers seek clean power
After 37 years in Thailand, Pandora wanted to expand its manufacturing
base to increase flexibility and strengthen supply-chain resilience,
Pablos-Barbier said.
She said that it chose Vietnam for its skilled artisans who can meet
Pandora's standards for craftsmanship, its business environment and its
strong infrastructure.
Access to renewable energy infrastructure to power factories is
increasingly an "important factor" for Pandora and other Danish
companies, Lina Gandløse Hansen, Denmark's ambassador to Vietnam, said.
Pandora's Vietnam facility, with 7,000 workers, will be powered entirely
by renewable electricity from the sun and wind, with solar panels
installed on its rooftops and plans to work with local solar farms, the
company said.
It is also across the road from the $1 billion factory that toymaker
Lego opened in 2025, where it says it makes toys without adding
planet-warming gases to the atmosphere.
Vietnam has rapidly expanded renewable energy and had Southeast Asia’s
largest installed solar and wind capacity at the end of 2024. But the
country still relies heavily on coal to power its fast-growing economy,
making it important for manufacturers to shift toward cleaner
electricity as Vietnam works toward net-zero emissions by 2050.
Manufacturing makes up a fifth of Vietnam’s GDP and consumes half the
energy it uses. There are plans to phase out its coal power plants by
2040.
Using recycled gold and silver to make jewelry
Pandora's commitment to using recycled gold and silver was a “big deal,"
said Saleem H. Ali, who leads the program on critical minerals and
inclusive energy transitions at the United Nations University.
He said gold is especially easy to recycle and unlike metals such as
copper, it does not break down or rust. Silver can also be recycled,
although it can tarnish and needs to be cleaned.
“That is why it is so valuable. We still have gold from the ancient
Egyptians, in pretty good shape,” he said.
The Danish company switched to using 100% recycled silver and gold for
new jewelry in August 2024.
Its factories receive small grains of refined metal from recyclers in
Europe and Asia, sourced from items ranging from medical equipment to
old cutlery, said Pandora’s chief sustainability officer Mads Twomey-Madsen.
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Craftspersons create jewelry pieces at the Pandora factory in Ho Chi
Minh city, Vietnam, Wednesday, Sept.30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh)
It also means finding suppliers, smelters or refiners that use only
recycled material. There's also a risk that some could add newly mined
material into the mix, Ali said. “That involves a lot of auditing.”
Pandora began changing its wider supply chain five years ago by adopting
standards set by the Responsible Jewellery Council, an industry group
that promotes responsible practices including on human rights, workers’
rights and environmental impacts, Twomey-Madsen said. The company uses
independent auditors, he said.
He said the ultimate goal is for the entire supply chain, including the
energy-intensive process of heating and separating metals from other
materials to remove impurities, to be powered by clean energy.
Other challenges include urban mining and tracing gold
Recovering valuable metals from discarded products and other waste is a
challenge, Twomey-Madsen said.
The world is producing more e-waste than ever — 62 million metric tons
in 2022, projected to grow to 82 million metric tons by 2030, according
to a report by the United Nations' International Telecommunications
Union and research arm UNITAR. Much of this is processed informally,
where workers can be exposed to toxic substances while recovering
valuable metals such as gold and silver.
More than 1,000 harmful substances have been found in e-waste or
produced when it is improperly recycled, including lead, mercury,
cadmium and other toxic chemicals, according to the World Health
Organization.
Ali, the critical minerals expert, said that artisanal gold mining —
when individuals or small groups extract gold using simple tools — was
now the largest cause of mercury pollution worldwide. Miners in poor
countries may use the toxic metal to separate gold from other materials,
harming people and the environment.
He said there have been efforts to improve gold sourcing, but tracing
gold remains difficult. South Asia, in particular, has high demand for
gold and jewelry sellers often don’t ask where their gold comes from.
“Once it gets melted, it’s very hard to track it,” he said.
Twomey-Madsen said that the company hopes its commitment to buying
recycled metals will show suppliers that there is a growing market for
the materials. He added that Pandora initially paid a premium for
recycled gold and silver, absorbing the higher cost and investing with
suppliers to build a more reliable supply chain for the materials.
Making jewelry is far less emissions-intensive than sectors such as
aviation or cement. But he said a switch by the entire industry
switching to recycled gold and silver could prevent about 58 million
metric tons (63.9 million U.S. tons) of carbon dioxide from entering the
atmosphere each year.
“That is comparable to the entire emissions of New York City,” he said.
___
Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam
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