Industry bodies speak with confidence about how a modern-day diamond ends up in a consumer’s hands, but the full story of a gem, from the moment it is unearthed to the moment it is sold, is often unclear. That gap also exists because consumers rarely question it. As Nikhil Jogia, director of Jogia Diamonds, told Inside Retail, “In my 20-plus years in the industry, less than 0.5 per cent of consumers care about where a diamond comes from and where it is mined.” That indifference
sits strangely in modern retail, where, according to Neilson, 66 per cent of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable brands.
From mine to trader to polishing house to showroom, diamonds change hands often enough that it is plausibly impossible to follow, even as shoppers grow accustomed to tracing the origins of what they digest and wear. Diamond sourcing carries a macabre reality that certification hasn’t fully resolved. As the ethical conscious consumer evolves, expectations will rise, and laboratory-grown or “man-made” diamonds are already gaining popularity. “A mined diamond’s price has never truly reflected quality or craftsmanship. Rather, a huge portion of what you’re paying for is supply chain theatre and hundreds of years of product positioning.” Mikayla Donovan, founder of TMC Jewellery, told Inside Retail that her answer circles back to lab-grown diamonds, a clearer proposition in a category historically dominated by opacity.
The diamond trade remains vast and enduring, valued at more than $100 billion globally, with $30 billion worth of stones passing through Surat, India, each year. A recent survey reported that 70 per cent of Australian consumers prefer products that they believe are ethically sourced, yet only 20 per cent say they fully understand what that really means. Globally, 138 million children remain in labour, with mining accounting for 1 million of them, and diamond extraction prominently within that system. Earlier this year, a mine collapsed in Rubaya in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing hundreds of men, women and children. The toll remains uncertain, and the grim reality is these conditions are not new. As World Vision has noted, “the allure can quickly lose its sparkle when we learn about some of the labour practices behind this industry.”
The question of origin
The diamond trade itself operates as a global circuit, with stones extracted in producer countries where unregulated mining, tied to exploitation and risk, prevails, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola and the Central African Republic. From there, stones are sold to traders, transported across borders and into international hubs including Dubai, Antwerp, Surat and Israel, where they are sorted, cut and re-exported. From mine to trader to sorter to cutter to polisher to grader to jeweller, the path appears orderly. But with each transaction and each transfer, something is lost, and in 2026, ethical risk lives in limbo even within legitimate markets.
In 2003, a coalition of Southern African states, the international diamond industry and civil society organisations established the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). Its purpose is to prevent rough diamonds used by rebel movements from entering the legitimate market and remains the dominant shell governing global trade, yet its limits are well understood. “People see ‘conflict-free certified’ and think that means the stone is ethically clean. It doesn’t,” Donovan explained, adding that the KPSC only covers a narrow definition of conflict diamonds. “It doesn’t address broader labour conditions, environmental damage or community impact.” In response, alternatives have moved from the margins to the mainstream. Lab-grown diamonds, she said, allow jewellers to offer our customers a chemically and visually identical stone at a far lower price, without any of the ethical grey areas.
The footprint question persists
The comparison between lab-grown and mined diamonds is not immune to its own scrutiny. Laboratory stones are created using temperature- and chemical-vapour deposition processes that replicate natural formation, avoiding the land disruption and human exploitation associated with mining, yet they are not without a footprint. “Lab-grown does remove a lot of the supply chain problems associated with mining and the severe ecosystem damage that comes with it, that’s real,” Donovan said, while acknowledging the footprint consumers deserve to know. “The energy footprint of lab-grown production varies; not all lab diamonds are equal on that front.” Her own supply chain, she explained, is powered by renewable energy, with additional commitments such as tree planting built into the business model.
Now, consumers are being asked to make ethical decisions within an ambiguous system, while retailers are left to translate it at the counter. Jewellery businesses like TMC are interpreting this now, as customers move from passive buyers to active spectators of the process. “By the end of a consultation, a lot of customers feel genuinely good about the choice after learning more about the traceability of a lab-grown diamond,” Donovan said. The diamond trade can be desolate, but certainty remains conditional. Unless a diamond can be traced with confidence back to its source, with evidence of the conditions under which it was mined and moved, the ethical claim will remain incomplete. Lab-grown diamonds could be an alternative, and perhaps a clearer proposition that removes the need for trust in a system that has long struggled to provide it.
Further reading: As more jewellery brands embrace lab-grown diamonds, some fear oversupply
