4 New Questions for the Lab-Grown Diamond Market

(jckonline.com) - A few weeks back, the founder of Plasmability told me the lab-grown diamond business is in a “Wild West” phase. It sure feels like it. There are good businesses in the sector. But far too many are nontransparent, make unsubstantiated claims, and violate environmental marketing standards, like the Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides. And we still see the typical, sometimes deliberate, fuzziness about the difference between synthetics and simulants. As lab-grown diamonds become more accepted by the industry and the public—Meghan Markle reportedly sported a pair—companies that sell and produce them will need to conform to standard norms and practices, and perhaps consider issues they hadn’t before. So here are four questions I believe the lab diamond industry will have to reckon with as it matures. A few of them I would never have considered prior to the recent boom.