Starting in 2009, the Alliance for Responsible Mining-ARM (responsible for Fairmined certification) worked with Fairtrade International on a standard that resulted in the first Fairmined and Fairtrade-certified gold.

In 2013, ARM and Fairtrade decided to continue working separately for organizational reasons. Therefore, today that organizations work independently and there are two different certifications, but they are united by their common goal of social and ecological mining. However, the Fairtrade and Fairmined seals differ only slightly in the standards to which they adhere.

The Fairtrade standard guarantees mines a minimum price of 95% of the London Metal Exchange price and a premium of $2,000 per kilogram of gold, which must be used for community-based projects. This premium rises to $4,000 per kilogram for Fairmined. Both organizations are dedicated to environmentally responsible mining and toxic material management.