The open session of the CIBJO Congress 2021 on November 4, 2021, featured CIBJO’s Laboratory-Grown Diamond Committee. It was established in 2019 from an earlier-created working group and charged with developing a guidance document to support the incorporation of the laboratory-grown diamond sector into the greater jewellery industry.

The CIBJO committee’s approach in developing the guideline is that laboratory-grown diamonds have a legitimate place in the jewellery business, and their manufacturers and traders enjoy an equal right to derive financial benefit from their products, on condition that consumers are provided adequate information about them so as to make reasoned purchasing decisions.

The guidance document, which was officially released in June 2021, was presented by the Laboratory-Grown Diamond Committee Chair Wesley Hunt.

The presentation was followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Edward Johnson, who also is moderator of CIBJO’s popular webinar series, Jewellery Industry Voices. Panel members include CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri; Andrey Zharkov, Founder, Ultra C, a laboratory-grown diamond jewellery company; Sara Yood, Deputy General Counsel, at the Jewelers Vigilance Committee (JVC); and industry analyst Edahn Golan. It considered the impact of laboratory-grown diamonds in the marketplace from a variety of perspectives, and the role that can be played by the uniform set of principles contained in the Laboratory-Grown Diamond Guidance document.