Charting a diamond's path from a mine through the global supply chain is not simple. One reason for this could be that neither the jewelry industry nor consumers prioritized it.
Now, mainly due to the war in Ukraine and additional sanctions starting next year against diamonds from Russia (the world's largest diamond exporter by volume), “knowing where a diamond comes from is becoming essential information,” said Al Cook, CEO of mining giant De Beers Group, at a jewelry show in Las Vegas in June.
Cook used the event to promote a blockchain platform that De Beers hopes will become the new industry standard for traceability.
Known as Tracr, the company uses high-speed photography to create a digital twin of a diamond in the rough.
De Beers, Tracr's owner, is promoting it as the backbone of its new initiative, the De Beers Institute of Diamonds' Origin suite of services, a division of the company that offers grading, training and educational services.
Origin Services was designed to educate buyers about their diamonds well beyond the “Four Cs” (cut, color, clarity and carat weight), explained David Prager, executive vice president of De Beers.
Diamonds with De Beers Code of Origin inscriptions now have QR code labels. When a customer scans a code, they open a site with multimedia content that includes verification that the diamond is natural and not created in a laboratory and identifies whether it originated in Botswana, Canada, Namibia or South Africa.
“By scanning that QR code, they will be able to understand the character of their diamond,” Prager said.
Tracr is one of several traceability programs introduced in recent months. Some, like Israeli diamond technology provider Sarine's AutoScan Plus system, are data-driven, while others rely on guarantees or audits.
The fact that the programs are coming to market now is no coincidence. The Group of 7 countries have just announced sanctions banning the import of gemstones mined or processed in Russia starting January 1.
Greg Kwiat, CEO of Kwiat Diamonds, a diamond jewelry brand in New York, said the company's Mine to Shine traceability program, introduced in June, was created to show how diamonds positively impact communities in Africa. where they are extracted.
Consumers can follow their stones from the mine through the stages of cutting and setting into jewelry.
In 2019, Nicholas Moltke, a former De Beers sales executive, founded Botswanamark, a company that sells loose diamonds that, through blockchain technology, he said are certified to have been responsibly mined in Botswana. While at De Beers, he worked for five years in Gaborone, the Capital of Botswana.
“I saw firsthand how well these diamonds do and how important they are to the communities that make their living from them,” he stated.
By: VICTORIA GOMELSKY
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7026402, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-12-12 21:30:09
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