Jewelery industry turmoil: Pandora, the world's largest jeweler, announced on May 4 that it was forgoing mined diamonds to make its jewelry.
In the future, he will only use stones produced in the laboratory.
Since diamonds are only present on a very small part of Pandora's collection, the announcement is above all symbolic.
But other jewelry stores, like the French Courbet, have already made the choice of “synthetic diamonds”.
For the consumer, the diamond produced in the laboratory has the advantage of being on average 40% cheaper.
A price difference which is explained by the decrease in the number of intermediaries, a diamond mined passes through a dozen hands before reaching the market.
Growing diamonds
The laboratories where these synthetic diamonds are produced centralize many stages, from the growth of the diamond to its size, including polishing.
And there is one in France.
This is the Diam Concept start-up, located in Loges-en-Josas (Yvelines).
Its founder, Alix Gicquel, likes to say that she "grows diamonds".
By placing the seeds of a single crystal diamond in a plasma reactor heated to very high temperature, it reproduces the conditions conducive to the formation of these precious stones. In a few weeks, the germs grow, until they reach a size sufficient for sale in jewelry. It is therefore a question of growing diamonds above ground, and not of counterfeiting. “It's like comparing an ice cube you made in your freezer to an ice cube you collected on the surface of a lake. It's the same thing, ”insists Marie-Ann Wachtmeister, co-founder and artistic director of the jeweler Courbet.
Moreover, Alix Gicquel refuses the official name of "synthetic diamonds": "The diamond is pure carbon.
We cannot synthesize a pure body, we can only extract it, or make it grow.
Layer by layer, atom by atom, the diamond will grow, but there is no synthesis ”.
However, since 2002, the French law imposes the use of the term as soon as "the manufacture caused totally or partially by the man".
Two visions of the diamond
Because an image war rages between the two worlds.
If the producers of laboratory diamonds tout their ethical and environmental interest, it is currently difficult to see clearly.
"On the ethical side, we must be very careful with synthetic diamonds, we do not have enough perspective to say that it is really ethical," says Sandrine Marcot, deputy president of the Union of jewelry and jewelry.
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In a study published in 2019, and commissioned by the Natural Diamond Council, which brings together the seven largest producers of mine diamonds, the Trucost agency ensured that laboratory production would have a carbon footprint three times that of mining. stones in the mines. 511 kg of CO2 per carat for synthetic diamonds, against 160 for mine diamonds.
Arguments that make Courbet jump: “To get a carat of diamond from the mine, you have to grind and extract 250 tonnes of ores. These holes are a kilometer deep, a kilometer wide. It's like the first arrondissement of Paris ”. For Ann-Marie Wachtmeister, the choice is made: "A laboratory certainly requires energy, but it is possible to choose which energy". The jeweler mainly obtains its supplies from a Russian laboratory backed by a hydraulic power plant, but also from Diam Concept. The French start-up emits only 20 kg of CO2 per carat produced.
Beyond ethical questions, it is the sentimental value that matters to Sandrine Marcot.
“The diamond is a stone that is several million years old, which is linked to an attachment.
There is a value associated with natural diamonds, which for the moment is absolutely not associated with synthetic diamonds ”.
According to her, consumers are not yet ready to buy a wedding ring set with a lab-produced diamond.
But for how long ?
To date, synthetic diamonds represent only 3.5% of diamond sales in France.
Globally, 140 million carats are extracted from mines each year, compared to only 3 to 5 million carats produced in the laboratory.
But its production is increasing by 15% every year.