Diamonds are forever: But what about the diamond mining industry? Can it survive lab-grown diamonds?
Diamonds are forever. Perhaps one of the most famous marketing taglines of all time, first penned by Frances Gerety in 1947, has stuck in the diamond industry ever since. But, the diamond industry as we know it, may be under threat.
Opening Pandora's box
This week Pandora, which is the world's largest jewellery company, announced that from now on they would no longer offer mined diamonds — instead only sourcing diamonds that are created in a laboratory. This is a big deal for lab-grown diamonds, which only accounted for 6-7 million carats of global diamond production last year (according to a report from Bain).
The ability to create a diamond in a lab is not new. In fact, the first synthetic diamond was reportedly created in 1954 — just 7 years after Frances Gerety wrote her famous marketing slogan. So far then, the mined-diamond industry has been doing just fine, with lab-grown alternatives gaining little traction before the last decade.
However, recent advances in technology, coupled with increasingly ethically focused consumers, has meant that both the demand and supply of lab-grown diamonds has increased significantly in the last decade. Pandora's announcement this week is likely to accelerate that trend.
The diamond mining industry might need another slogan.
P.S. Decent video explanation of how lab-grown diamonds are made can be found here.
