The past decade has seen the appearance of a new material: ‘ethical gold’. Indistinguishable from other gold alloys in terms of physical properties, ethical gold is promoted as different and more desirable on the basis of specific claims relating to provenance. Ethical gold came into being on the basis of ideological beliefs regarding social justice and ecological responsibility. Yet ethical gold certification programmes have encountered frequent difficulties in operation, many of which can be traced back to their developers’ and overseers’ naivety regarding gold extraction, processing & forming technologies. Despite this ignorance, the programmes quickly came to rely on a cornerstone of the UK’s gold sector – the UK Assay Offices. By utilizing the Assay Offices’ goodwill, capacity to innovate and secure oversight systems the certification schemes were able to quickly become established and trusted in the UK. Through a series of event case studies, this paper will demonstrate why specific gold technologies have been barriers or beneficial to ethical gold certification schemes. By explaining why manufacturing methods matter to ethical gold, the papers’ insights will be of assistance to professionals working in any sector of the goldworking industry, as well as the current managers and stewards of ethical gold schemes.