In early May, Pandora, one of the world's top jewelry makers, while introducing Pandora Brilliance, its new lab-grown diamond jewelry collection, announced that it would no longer use natural diamonds. The move and the company's statement in which lab-grown diamonds were positioned as an ethical choice versus natural diamonds, generated a wide response in the professional community, as well as in the mass media. Calling Pandora’s narrative false and misleading, several natural diamond industry organizations asked the jeweler to correct its statement. Meanwhile, the media carried a whole gamut of comments on the subject. For its part, Rough&Polished invites readers to get acquainted with the opinions expressed by experts Sergey Goryainov and Richard Chetwode.
Pandora’s Box
“Why did Pandora take such a radical step?” says Sergey Goryinov. “Let’s set aside the arguments about the environmental friendliness and ethics of the synthetic diamonds - this is actually not a reason but a tool to create an information “umbrella” that allows knocking out a “natural diamond” competitor from the market. And the real reason was quite frankly explained by Alexander Lacik, CEO of Pandora, in his interview with Bloomberg, “Pandora also emphasized price as a consideration behind its decision. Lab-made stones cost about a third of mined ones and the switch will make diamond jewelry accessible to more consumers”.
Pandora’s Box of Worms?
“Pandora has announced a move from natural to lab-grown diamonds in their jewellery,” says Richard Chetwode. “Possibly the biggest winners will be the shareholders in their US and European lab-grown suppliers. But, even though they happily used to sell natural diamonds, they now insinuate that there is something wrong with them. The biggest losers? Tens of thousands of people in the developed world who rely on the natural diamond industry. Really?! Someone needs to alert the Generation Z consumer!”
