Pandora, the world鈥檚 biggest jeweler, dealt a blow to diamond miners on Tuesday by , but exclusively man-made ones.
The Danish company, best known for its charm bracelets, already doesn鈥檛 include mined diamonds in most of its pieces. From the 85 million pieces it sells a year, only about 50,000 of them include precious stones.
Pandora said Tuesday it will release its in the UK, expanding Pandora Brilliance to other markets in 2022.
The Pandora Brilliance collection, which is going on sale in the UK first, is advertised as carbon neutral because the diamonds are made with 60% renewable energy and the remaining emissions are offset
Those pieces of jewellery, chief executive Alexander Lacik聽said, will 鈥渘ot just be forever, but for everyone.鈥�
鈥淸The new collection] is as much a symbol of innovation and progress as it is of enduring beauty and stand as a testament to our ongoing and ambitious sustainability agenda,鈥� Lacik said.
Since 2011, when prices peaked thanks to聽China鈥檚 younger shoppers, diamonds have faltered. Lab-grown stones, initially priced confusingly close to the real thing, posed a challenge.
Top diamond makers reacted to the new kind of diamonds, widely embraced by young consumers as they look identical to the mined ones, by launching a joint marketing campaign.
Under the motto 鈥淩eal is Rare鈥�, the Natural Diamond Council (formerly the Diamond Producers Association), which groups the world鈥檚 leading diamond companies, launched a series of film-like spots targeting millennials 鈥� those born between 1981 and 1996.
Failing that, they begun selling man-made diamonds themselves. Anglo American鈥檚 De Beers, for one, created the聽Lightbox brand to sell alternative diamonds for a fraction of the price of the mined ones.
Ethical concerns
Despite the establishment of the Kimberley Process in 2003, aimed at removing conflict diamonds from the supply chain, experts say聽.
Miners and world famous jewellers including Tiffany & Co, have come up with innovative ways of certifying their stones as ethically mined, mostly based in blockchain technology. The New York-based company last year began providing customers with details of newly sourced, individually registered diamonds that trace a stone鈥檚 path all the way back to the mine.聽
While Pandora won鈥檛 need certificates of origin for its diamond jewellery, it is making a point to note its lab-made gems are grown from carbon with more than 60% renewable energy on average, a ratio that鈥檚 set to rise to 100% next year.
As part of its plan to make operations carbon neutral within four years, the Copenhagen-based聽firm vowed last year to stop relying on newly mined gold and silver and use instead only recycled precious metals by 2025.