The largest jewelry maker in the world, Pandora, will now only use diamonds from laboratories for their jewelry. The company wants to ban natural diamonds that are mined.
Pandora already hardly used diamonds in their jewelry; 50,000 of Pandora’s 85 million pieces of jewelery produced annually contain diamonds.
Karen Rentmeesters, of the umbrella organization Antwerp World Diamond Center, says that the price of lab diamonds has dropped so much in recent years due to large-scale production that it can now be a good earnings model for Pandora to only sell jewelry with that type of diamonds. Jewelry with lab diamonds is considerably cheaper than jewelry that contains natural diamonds.
The purity of the lab diamonds has also improved slightly in recent years, says Rentmeesters. However, after analysis it can ultimately be determined whether a diamond emerges from the ground or from a laboratory.
‘Wrong diamonds’
Human Rights Watch warned last year that many ‘wrong’ diamonds still end up with well-known jewelry brands. For example, production in the mines involves forced and child labor.
Stewards do have a side note: “At least 85 percent of the diamonds that are extracted from mines come from large listed companies that cannot operate without ensuring that the local community also benefits from it.”
Lots of Energie
A disadvantage of lab diamonds is that production requires a lot of energy. Carbon is compressed under great pressure and must be heated to 800 degrees Celsius. “Diamonds from laboratories are largely produced in companies in China, where they use coal,” says Rentmeesters.
Jewelery maker Pandora is working on making the production of lab diamonds more sustainable.
NOSop3 already took one a few years ago look in a laboratory where diamonds are made.
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