The second day of the 5th Mediterranean Gem and Jewellery Conference held in Limassol, Cyprus, was dedicated to frontal lectures. One of the highlights was a presentation by Dr. Michael Schlamadinger, Head of Procurement at Swarovski Gemstones, Wattens, Austria. He spoke about Swarovksi's decision to begin marketing their own line of lab-grown diamonds (LGDs) and market them in a jewelry line as well as loose.
First, he offered a general overview of how LGD production had evolved.
Chinese companies have been responsible for the annual production of some 10 billion of industrial synthetic diamonds. From the beginning of this century, Indian diamond companies began buying small goods from these Chinese manufacturers, cutting them into melees, and selling the polished synthetics as natural, until the industry woke up to the practice.
During the past years, Schlamadinger said, some of the largest diamond firms decided to make LGDs part of their portfolios. Dr. Schlamadinger pointed at companies such as Diarough, Mahendra Brothers and Rosy Blue. To them, he said, the manufacturing of and trading in LGDs is a kind of "add-on business." After all, the noted, the margins in LGDs are so much better compared to diamonds.
Meanwhile, the diamond industry and trade "keeps shooting" at the producers and distributors of LGDS. The (mined-) diamond industry claims LGDs consumer huge amounts of energy per carat produced, much more than mined diamonds. "" Schlamadinger stated.
A 2014 Frost & Sullivan study named the "Ecological Comparison of Synthetic versus Mined Diamonds" compared the cost of growing diamonds vs. mining. "They took the data from Sustainability Reports of big diamond miners. The study showed that mining in general consumes twice the energy than growing them," Schlamadinger recalled.
It is important to note that this report completely contradicts the results of the research recently published by the Diamond Producers Association (DPA) earlier this month and begs the question why the company hired by the DPA to conduct its research came to such different conclusions, and, more importantly, why the DPA chose to disregard the research done by Frost & Sullivan.