Destination: Korea
I would like to know when the item would leave India and would arrive in Korea.
If it arrives in Korea I can go visit the airport customs and pick it up myself
Hi, I'm a sustainability consultant in Korea looking for some career advice.
In around 2 to 4 years I may move to the UK with my British partner although nothing is finalized yet.
I graduated with a master's degree in sustainability studies in February 2024. After graduation I worked for about 1 year and 2 months at a small consulting firm that mainly focused on sustainability reporting. I then moved to a larger environmental consulting firm and have now been there for about 10 months.
The problem is that my current company is mainly focused on EHS consulting and does not really have strong expertise or recognition in ESG consulting or carbon accounting. Because of that I am basically leading most of the ESG related work on my own.
Most of the ESG projects we receive are government projects. To be honest I do not feel that these projects are helping me develop specialized expertise. The more interesting part of my work is that our firm sometimes receives ESG due diligence projects from a large global asset management firm. In those projects I evaluate SFDR PAI indicators calculate avoided emissions and review transition and biodiversity related risks.
Those projects are much closer to the type of work I want to do long term because I am interested in sustainable finance and climate finance. However these projects are not very frequent. So far I have only worked on about three ESG due diligence projects.
Another difficulty is that my supervisor is not really a specialist in sustainable finance or ESG methodology. I often end up researching and figuring things out by myself. I do think I have learned a lot independently but at the same time I sometimes feel there is a limit to how much I can grow without stronger mentorship.
I also worry that ESG due diligence can sometimes become too broad and high level. We usually identify and flag risks across many ESG topics but we do not always go very deep into technical analysis or investment decision making. Because of that I sometimes worry that my experience is becoming too generalist.
In Korea some environmental consulting firms focus heavily on Scope 1 2 and 3 accounting. Some consulting firms also work on climate risk assessments transition planning decarbonization strategy and scenario analysis. My company also wants to move into these areas but the market is already extremely competitive.
Ironically one of the biggest reasons I joined this company was work life balance. Some ESG and environmental consulting firms in Korea are known for extremely long working hours and very poor quality of life. I really did not want that kind of lifestyle.
At the same time I worry that staying here for too long could slow down my career growth. I also do not think I am experienced enough yet to move into an in house sustainability role. In Korea once you move in house the career path can become quite narrow unless you move to a larger company later on. I worry that moving in house too early could reduce my exposure to different projects and make it harder to build internationally transferable skills.
Because of that I am trying to think carefully about whether I should stay in consulting for a few more years and focus on building stronger technical expertise under better mentorship.
Long term what I really want is to work closer to the investment side. I am interested in sustainability focused investment analysis climate finance transition finance and ESG integration within financial institutions. I am much more interested in understanding how sustainability issues affect capital allocation and investment decisions than in sustainability reporting itself.
That is why I sometimes feel uncertain about whether my current experience is moving me in the right direction. I am not sure whether I should focus more on technical climate and carbon skills or build more finance related experience before trying to transition internationally.
For people working in sustainable finance ESG investing climate consulting or sustainability roles in the UK or EU I would really appreciate your advice.
What skills or experience would make someone like me more employable internationally?
Would it be better to deepen technical climate and carbon skills such as Scope 3 climate risk transition planning and LCA or continue building ESG due diligence and sustainable finance exposure?
Are certifications such as CFA ESG GARP SCR or FRM Sustainability actually valued in the UK market?
Is it realistic to move from ESG consulting into sustainable finance without a prestigious academic background?
If you were in my position what would you focus on during the next 2 to 4 years?
I would really appreciate honest advice from people already working in the field.
I know this will be an extremely unpopular opinion but I don't want to lie to the customs office and risk my credibility and pay fine if I get caught.
My gvmt has my overseas card payment transaction info and I can't lie. It is very easy to get caught.
Just because the vendors(who I will not name at the moment) don't want to pay tax and want to report their income low doesn't mean the buyer has to risk legal punishment.
When I purchased a ring from a chinese vendor and decided to return it,
The chinese vendor was so adamant on declaring it low on the customs but I couldn't and I had to have very heated conversations with the rep sales.
Now I'm working on another vendor but the seller is keep lying to me
Insisting that they have to prove inward remittance - which is a total lie
Also puts "bill of entry" as an excuse - when the courier provides all the custom clearance service.
It is so stupid and agonizing on my end and now I am starting to have stereotypes of these countries' vendors to be non-trustworthy.
DO NOT LIE ON CUSTOMS PLEASE.
Hi. I just wanted to share the great experience and bad experience me and my partner had with Provence.
Please read my old posts to understand the full story.
So long story short, we decided to get a refund from Provence and they will collect the ring in the near future.
We asked for a 4ct OMC with color GHI VVS.
They did not. Eventually, we received the ring in May when we made an order in early-mid March.
The first stone they cut for us was just horrible.
Please check my old videos and posts.
The second stone looked great until we received the ring.
NGIC certificate that came along stated it's DE.
We love the antique nature of an old mine cut so we asked for a GHI/GH not a DE
We didn't want anything icy.
Also, we were worried as the face up size for an old mine cut sounded too too big.
They said the face up size would be 11*8.5mm and to match up the carat weight (4ct), the depth was 5.3mm which i was keep worried that would be too shallow for an omc and apparently it was...
When I received the OMC none of the facets would reflect ANY fire but would just stay dark and black unless it reflects the color of my skin tone and the color of the clothes I'm wearing.
I know omc cuts have windowing and it's hard to avoid but at least in other people's videos they would show at least some fire but mine didn't. No reflecting of colors unless I just turn on a strong colored led light.
We asked for a certain faceting style but they even failed at that... so we were very worried with the ring even before it was shipped.( yeah we should've just canceled the order when they showed the 2nd stone video.. we were just so exhausted)
I know Provence declares the price low and it works in the US or some other countries but
that doesn't really work in my country. We don't live in the US.
We have to use a certain personal custom number to import anything overseas.
According to the law, the card companies send our transaction information to the customs office and the customs office compare the info of transaction and the declared amount.
The custom number is linked to my resident number which is also linked to my card info.
So it's quite impossible to undervalue(declare anything low) as customs office literally knows everything.
When we talked about declaring it at a full price with Provence, they didn't say anything until by the time it was being shipped.
Thankfully Provence decided to declare it at a full price and decided to sunk their cost on their end(they first asked for additional fees for full price declaration which i don't really understand) but it would've been great if these informations were discussed in the beginning.
Also, I work in compliance matters so I wasn't feeling comfortable about declaring it low. I know it will depend on the reader's characteristics of what you think about declaring the price low, I just don't want to risk my future overseas purchase process and the hassle with customs just because I don't want to pay tariff and tax. If i get caught in my country, my overseas purchases would be checked every single time and would take longer. Also this was the engagement ring and marriage shouldn't start by lying to the gvmt.
I will not mention which sales rep i was talking to. I'll call her A. I still am grateful of all the job she has done for us. I didn't want her to work on the national holidays as I value good work-life balance myself but had to ask for the invoice when the item was arriving. (Retrospect she could've just given that invoice in advance before i had to ask but.. i'm still grateful!)
After the first horrible cut we were so much in rage as A has already delayed all the timeline. My partner was the one who was proposing to me told me since A couldn't meet the timeline, he had to cancel the photographer and everything he had planned twice.
Anyway, it was already the 2 weeks later than she promised us to ship the stone. We asked Provence customer service to help us with our situation. Eventually.. we had a whole group chain with the first sales rep A, another famous sales rep on reddit (whom I'll name her B) who turned out to be the first rep's manager and me and my partner.
As I read on reddit, B was very helpful fixing the overall issues but she was quite "gas lighting" when it came to the 2nd stone. It wasn't the faceting pattern we were expecting. We had doubts if it were anything that were already on stock. This was B's reply.
Anyway, we set the ring and got it shipped but decided to get a refund as they screwed up again with the stone spec. It was a DE not a GHI according to the certificate. We were really not happy by the fact that Provence screwed up with the order again!!!!! Anyway we contacted A.
Why we contacted A is becuz we were truly sorry for making her work on her holidays and becuz of empathy. As someone who used to make many mistakes at work, I didn't want her to go into more trouble. I already felt bad by the fact that her manager had to join the group chain to fix the issues. I read how hard it is to get a job at the age over 35 in China (not sure if she's over 35 but anyway i hope you get my point) and as I already know she has a child I really didn't want her to lose her job. I truly hope her records with us doesn't effect her work status.
We asked about options they could offer.
Since we trusted Provence's ring setting quality, we wanted to source a stone privately and send it to China. (We decided to go with a pinhole culet OMC 3ct cuz it was on stock. It wasn't GHI, it was a different culet type but we decided to go with this diamond as we didn't want to waste more time on completing the ring)
First she said the setting would be made free - we were surprised and agreed
then she said we had to pay for gold price - we agreed
then she said we had to pay for all the setting fee and pay for it.
We had to pay for literally everything, she insisted just setting the stone on the ring would be free eventually and would still have to burden all the shipping fees (1st ring return 2nd ring shipping) I'm not sure how it works in other countries but in my country if the refund's liability rests on the seller, the seller pays for shipping.
So we stopped talking to her.
We talked to B. We asked if we can
(1) return the 1st ring
(2) send a stone we sourced privately(had it managed)
(3) they set a 2nd ring and send it to us
and (4) then finalize the refund amount by deducting the resetting 2nd ring fee
They said they could do (1), (2), (3) but not (4)
"[17:01, 5/5/2026]: I said we keep the before ring payment -the first ring payment we will keep .as the before ring labor cost and everything had been occured ,even you send back the ring ,we use the ring gold to a new setting ,it also needs more labor cost here again and then the gold cant be used 100% ,which means if the ring is 2g of weight ,we cant use enough 2grams there for the new setting
[17:01, 5/5/2026]: Now we are saying with a free new setting for you is want to show you a comfirtable buying experience"
So even we know they would be selling the 4ct omc diamond, reusing the gold, they were not going to give us "ANY refund" of the ring if they reset it.
so basically we were just getting a ring set for $2000 while we source the diamond somewhere else by ourselves. IT DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE.
Provence and we decided to go for a refund process.
These are the great experiences with Provence.
(1) band quality.
there is no doubt that the band was made so perfectly. The stone was just the problem.
(2) express shipping
They upgraded the shipping to express shipping. We thought the ring would arrive after the Chinese labor holiday but the ring arrived on May 2 in my country.
We fast forwarded the process with customs, visited the UPS storage ourselves and received it on Saturday.
u/OmGemIndia apparently they are quite active on reddit as I'm searching about them right now.
This is not an advertisement. I'm paying full price and this is to assure the quality of our ring.
We bought their diamond on etsy and talked to them about setting.
If they deliver a bad ring i'll write about it too.
Anyway, please make an informed choice when purchasing and ordering a ring from Provence.
This is the first video the vendor sent me
I was very worried about the four black facets so I asked more videos under sunlight
This is a video under sunlight
They told me the four black facets were due to strong led light.
This is the third video with the ring box
Final video showing me that the facets look fine?
What do u all think about this?
The ring is finally set. All 4 facets look very dark at the front view so that's a little bit concerning.
What do u all think about this stone?
