Nelson Mandela was sufficiently worried that the 2007 film ‘Blood Diamond’ would have a negative impact on those African economies which were reliant on diamond sales, that he reached out to Warner Brothers before its release. In his letter to director Ed Zwick, he wrote: “it would be deeply regrettable if the making of this film obscured the truth, and as a result led the world …to cease buying mined diamonds from Africa… we hope that the desire to tell a gripping and important real-life historical story will not result in the destabilisation of African diamond-producing countries and ultimately their peoples”.  

Warner Brothers didn’t respond, but in a subsequent interview, Ed Zwick acknowledged that diamonds were crucial to many African economies, although he didn’t believe they were receiving their fair share of the benefits. After meeting Mandela, the star of Blood Diamond, Leonardo Di Caprio, stated that “ultimately, diamonds are a source of social and economic stability in Africa, so this movie isn’t to say people shouldn’t buy diamonds”. 

So why do lab-grown diamond (LGD) companies continue to demonise the natural diamond industry without being challenged? Three things stand out: First, there are still a few bad players in the industry, and the issue of origin persists despite the availability of tracking technology. Secondly, the potential money to be made in LGDs convinced many in the natural diamond industry to get involved themselves. Thirdly, and most importantly, the natural diamond industry failed to learn a simple lesson; if you don’t tell your own story, then other people will tell it for you. 

A recent example is the fine jewellery brand ‘Kimai’, which Sidney Neuhaus and Jess Warch pitched on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den. They claimed that their LGDs, which have been worn by celebrities like Emma Watson and Meghan Markel, are “chemically and optically identical to mined ones without the negative impact… from unethical mining environment to huge negative environmental impact”. Disturbed by the negativity, I checked Kimai’s website which claims that “the [diamond mining] industry is full of unfair working conditions, environmentally disastrous consequences and blown-up prices”. No, it’s not. The website states that ”…typically, mined diamonds come from unethical supply chains in conflict regions, with poor working conditions, low wages and human rights violations”; No, they typically don’t. These opinions are not an accurate reflective of the whole industry, on which so many people in the Global South depend for their livelihoods, so why is it acceptable for them to use such misleading comments to promote their own business. 

Even more troubling are the claims made by LGD jeweller ‘Vrai’ (Vrai.com) which is the retail arm of US-based LGD grower Diamond Foundry, which was set up in 2013 with funding from billionaires like Mark Pincus (Zynga), Evan Williams (Twitter) and Andre McCollum (Facebook). Vrai state that their LGDs have been worn by the likes of Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lopez, Emma Stone, Emma Watson and Joe Jonas, but they also falsely claim that natural diamonds are “abundant” in the earth, and that prices are controlled by a “foreign mining cartel”, suggesting customers feel “fleeced” when buying natural diamonds. Given that newly mined natural diamond supplies are depleting, and no cartel has existed for decades, these statements are not only blatantly untrue but also hypocritical. While LGDs are cheap to produce and have little resale value, they are often sold at high retail margins, raising the obvious question of who is actually ‘fleecing’ consumers.

Vrai goes on to claim that diamond mining causes irreversible environmental damage to the entire surrounding ecosystem and that wildlife is displaced both through the actual mining and the associated deforestation. 

They target De Beers, referencing its founder (Cecil Rhodes) as the ‘architect of apartheid’, and state that its revenues ‘support African governments and officials’, ignoring De Beers’ unique commitments to environmental conservation and community development, as well as the benefits that natural diamonds bring to so many. For every hectare of land disturbed by mining, De Beers manages six hectares for conservation. In Botswana, De Beers and the government are the largest breeders and protectors of white rhino. At De Beers’ 32,000-hectare Venetia Limpopo Game Reserve there were too many elephants so in an amazing project, they transported over 100 elephants over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to restock the 400,000-hectare Zinave National Park in Mozambique where after decades poaching, only eight elephants remained. 

De Beers has partnered with ‘National Geographic’ to protect the Okavango Delta. As for deforestation, maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t know of a single tree uprooted for diamond mining in the last five years, but I do know that De Beers is working with innovative start-up ‘Kelp Blue’ to plant forests of kelp off the coast of Namibia to capture carbon dioxide in the ocean. De Beers’ own research shows that kimberlite ore naturally absorbs carbon; the more it is crushed and stockpiled above ground, the more carbon it absorbs.

Nelson Mandela praised De Beers for its work in communities. “I congratulate De Beers, a world leader in diamonds, with its roots in South Africa for the way it continues to demonstrate its credentials as a good corporate citizen in so many areas of concern”. Who better defines De Beers? Nelson Mandela, or the man Vrai want you to associate them with, who died in 1902? 

Natural diamonds have turned Botswana from one of Africa’s poorest nations into one of its richest. In West Africa approximately 1.5mn artisanal miners (and their families) rely on natural diamonds not just for their jobs but for their very lives. Dishonestly demonising the natural diamond industry just to put money into the pockets of a few billionaire investors and the people you are really hurting are already some of the most marginalised people in the world, and why is that okay? Incidentally, De Beers’ ‘Gemfair’ project in Sierra Leone is arguably their best work, where local teams work with artisanal miners to bring them into the formal mining sector, access funding, provide training in safety, more environmentally friendly mining and provide the technology to track their diamonds and achieve real market prices. 

Ironically, Diamond Foundry’s most high-profile investor is the same Leonardo di Caprio who met with Mandela, except when it involved his own money, he changed his rhetoric completely to ‘I’m proud to invest in Vrai’s Diamond Foundry Inc – sustainably growing diamonds in America without the human and environmental toll of mining.” Nelson Mandela would be turning in his grave. 

No one mentions that LGD can be used as windows on missiles flying at high Mach numbers (to link to GPS satellites), used in high power lasers and microwave weaponry or as coatings on the nose cones of hypersonic missiles to protect them against rain and sand. Norinco is one of the larger producers of LGDs in China; it also makes tanks, artillery, ammunition, etc. Diamond Foundry itself claims to be the world’s leading producer of single-crystal LGD wafers, and recently signed a deal with major defence contractor Raytheon, looking to use LGD wafers to improve the performance of military hardware. That’s an interesting idea of sustainability.

The natural diamond industry stood back and let the LGD industry own the narrative, and innuendo, misinformation and outright lies were allowed to go unchallenged, and now they are paying the price. 

 

Richard Chetwode holds several non-executive roles in the diamond and property industry. He is a part-time journalist and is currently writing a book on the diamond industry in World War II. He is non-Executive Chairman of Namibia-based Trustco Resources and has previously worked for De Beers, Harry Winston, Dominion Diamonds and Gem Diamonds. All the opinions in this article are his own but while efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information provided in this article, neither can be guaranteed. Information in this article is strictly for informational purposes and should not be considered investment or financial advice. Consult your investment professional before making any investment decisions.