CIBJO’s Diamond Commission has reported on work currently being done to ensure that accurate information is being provided when disclosing whether a diamond is treated or laboratory grown, in order to protect consumers. The commission’s President is Udi Sheintal.

Speaking during the commission’s session at the 2024 CIBJO Congress in Shanghai, Raluca Anghel, Global Head of External Affairs and Industry Relations at the Natural Diamond Council (NDC), spoke of the importance of the correct use of diamond terminology and disclosure across the jewellery trade.

“We don’t have a lot of consumers who see the differences between natural diamonds and laboratory-grown diamonds,” she said. “Consumers need to understand these differences.”

The significant price differences that have opened up between natural diamonds and laboratory-grown diamonds reinforce the need for correct disclosure to protect consumers, Ms Anghel said.

The CIBJO Diamond Blue Blook is a vital tool in determining the correct use of the terms for synthetic diamonds, laboratory-grown diamonds and laboratory-created diamonds, she added.

“The Natural Diamond Council focuses a lot on driving marketing efforts and supporting brands and designers in bringing content to consumers. But where we see consumers affected by incorrect disclosure, we act,” Ms Anghel said.

The NDC has sought to protect consumers by reporting to the relevant authorities any inappropriate use of diamond terminology in retail around the world.

In the United Kingdom, for example, Skydiamond advertisements were banned because misleading claims about the nature of their synthetic gems, following a ruling by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority after a complaint was lodged by the NDC. Skydiamond had used terms such as “real diamond” to describe laboratory-grown diamonds.

In another example, in India, the NDC filed a complaint to the Advertising Council of India about an Indian company’s advertisement of laboratory-grown diamonds which incorrectly used a term “green diamonds.”

Terms such as “created diamonds”, “sustainably created” or “sustainably grown” and “world positive”, are examples of breaches of disclosure, Ms Anghel said.

She also warned against using such terms in hashtags in social media marketing.

A further example of a breach of disclosure was an advertisement by a retailer (Agape Diamonds), which had promoted free earrings without disclosing what type of stones they were using, Ms Anghel said.

The NDC has released a report called “Diamond Facts” to inform retailers about natural diamonds and to explain the differentiation between natural diamonds and laboratory-grown diamonds.

The NDC presented a marketing video to the CIBJO plenary featuring their ambassador, actress Lily James, which showcased how the livelihoods of a community of workers and local residents at a diamond mine in Canada, were benefiting from diamond mining.

Purvi Shah, head of Ethical and Sustainable Value Chains at De Beers, who also is coordinating CIBJO’s Supply Chain Nomenclature Committee, provided an overview of the projected to create harmonised and commonly understand terminology for describing supply chain in the diamond industry and the greater jewellery industry.

In a separate presentation, Ronnie Bauer, senior Australian representative to CIBJO, questioned retail offers of synthetic diamonds “made from cremated remains”, and asked the Diamond Commission to investigate further and deliver guidance.

Questions have reportedly been raised in scientific circles about the validity of offers to create laboratory-grown diamonds from the cremated remains of loved relatives and pets. This because temperatures in crematoria typically exceed those precipitating the vaporization of carbon, raising the question whether sufficient carbon could be retrieved in order to synthesize a diamond.

The Diamond Commission considered for discussion the following draft statement: “A laboratory-grown diamond report must clearly and prominently indicate that ‘the stone is grown from an unknown carbon source.’”