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The world’s largest jewelry brand is sticking to lab-grown stones.
Diamonds are so coveted for jewelry pieces because they are extremely scarce, and have a symbolic meaning as being resistant and enduring. Diamonds are also, however, prohibitively expensive for both consumers and retailers, requiring sizable operations to uncover, mine, shape, and fit. Pandora, one of the largest jewelry retail brands in the world, is taking steps to reduce the impact of diamond mining on both the environment and their budget.
Pandora announced today that their diamond jewelry will no longer contain any mined diamonds; instead, all diamonds in their pieces will be lab-grown, though they claim that these artificial stones will have the same “optical, chemical, thermal and physical characteristics.”
“They are as much a symbol of innovation and progress as they are of enduring beauty and stand as a testament to our ongoing and ambitious sustainability agenda,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik said in a statement. “Diamonds are not only forever, but for everyone.”
Pandora judges their lab-grown stones on the same standard as regular diamonds, checking for cut, color, clarity and carat before using them. The primary difference is that using lab-grown stones as opposed to mined stones is an environmental one; their current lab-growing process uses 60% renewable energy, and they expect that to reach 100% by the time this collection rolls out to the entire world.
Pandora will stop using mined diamonds, moving to only those produced in a lab https://t.co/K9A2TMGb7D
— Bloomberg (@business) May 4, 2021
“In the US, and especially in China and India, younger consumers say sustainability is part of their decision-making process and could influence whether they buy diamond jewelry,” Bain & Company said in a report published earlier this year.
The lab-grown stones will be released as part of a new jewelry collection, titled Pandora Brilliance. This new collection will start its run in the United Kingdom before moving on to the rest of the world some time next year.
