I was impressed by the lecture Yolande Kyngdon was kind enough to grant the diamond trade through articles recently published on PolishedPrices.com, says Daniel Horowitz, a former CEO of IDH Diamonds and De Beers Sightholder for many years, in an article posted by the same portal.
I was interested to hear that “consumers are becoming increasingly interested in ethical diamonds”. For those who are not yet aware of what “Ethical products” are, Yolande defines them as “either being manufactured in an environmentally friendly manner, or traded in a way that helps to improve the economic conditions of workers in the developing world.”
Until then I was under the impression that diamonds produced under pitiful conditions was a political and societal issue. It appears now that the suffering of so many people in the developing world is not the effect of mismanagement, corruption or exploitation. I was relieved to find out that the distress of Africans living on a mineral-rich continent had nothing to do with deceitful regimes. I now understand thanks to Yolande and reputable NGO’s that those who are to blame are the consumers acquiring jewelry without paying attention to their origin.
The solution, according to Yolande, is to make the public aware that tracking systems from mine to jewelry should be promoted, that would put consumers in a position to distinguish between ethical and unethical diamonds.
Yolande carried out a survey in order to measure consumer’s perception of diamonds. Based upon her findings, it appears that most of them would rather buy Ethical Diamonds than Unethical Diamonds.
Shaken by the astounding revelation I did my own survey in the car manufacturing industry in order to find out if Yolande’s discovery was echoed elsewhere. The result left no room for skepticism: as opposed to Yolande’s 63 % respondents that gave preference to Ethical Diamonds, my survey revealed that a staggering 99,99 % would rather acquire legitimate cars than stolen ones. Digging further into modern History, I was bemused to realize that there had never been any UN Resolution recommending consumers not to buy stolen cars.
As I wanted to firm up my own findings, I did a second survey. My approach was this time more intuitive than methodical, as I simply went around my acquaintances and asked them if they would rather buy square eggs instead of conventional ones. The response was clear-cut: 100 % declared unequivocally they would opt for square eggs because these would be easier to store and would not splash onto the floor from lopsided tables.
My two surveys largely corroborated my initial feeling as to how credible Yolande’s claim was that “a product like fair trade diamonds would achieve substantial discretionary consumer support”.
The problem is that she added: “If they were available”.
Well, the point is that such diamonds will never be available.
Some years ago I addressed the third World Diamond Conference about the very issue of tracing diamonds along the trade’s pipeline. It is not of best taste to quote oneself, but as I would not change an iota to what I said then, I might as well reiterate my views now.
“..it would be irresponsible to circumvent the fact that it is highly problematic, if not unfeasible, to work out a system in order to control the flow of rough diamonds around the world. The reality is that once diamonds are mined there is almost nothing one can do in order to prevent them from reaching the market. No certification scheme can truly be reliable, not only because war-torn areas are by definition disorganized, but mainly because it is intrinsically impossible to distinguish between good and bad diamonds. Misguiding traders and consumers with untrustworthy guarantees would inevitably be demystified over time.”
Unethical diamond undoubtedly exist, but no more or less than the unethical gold melted into bars and put asleep in central banks worldwide.
Charles Wyndham of WWW International Diamond Consultants recently mentioned on PolishedPrices that technologies exist nowadays that can identify diamonds at all stages, however, I strongly doubt that such technologies would ever make a diamond talk.
Therefore, my point is that no matter how eager consumers would be to support a product like “fair trade diamonds”, they will never be available because it is conceptually hot air.
