Pandora ditches mined diamonds for lab-made diamonds

Pandora, one of the world’s biggest jewellers, announced that it will no longer be selling mined diamonds amid environmental and labor concerns in the mining industry.

Instead, the Copenhagen-based company will be shifting towards laboratory-made diamonds which it emphasized to have the same “optical, chemical, thermal and physical characteristics,” according to a CNN report on Tuesday.

The new collection, called Pandora Brilliance, includes necklaces, earrings and rings. It is set to roll out in the United Kingdom first before being launched globally next year.

“They are as much a symbol of innovation and progress as they are of enduring beauty and stand as a testament to our ongoing and ambitious sustainability agenda. Diamonds are not only forever, but for everyone,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik said in a statement.

These lab-made diamonds, Pandora said, are still graded on the same “4Cs,” or cut, color, clarity and carat, as mined diamonds are before they’re sold.

Aside from eyeing sustainability, the new collection will be more environmentally friendly since it’ll be made with more than 60% renewable energy on average. Pandora expects that their new diamonds will be made with 100% renewable energy when it launches globally.

Lacik also told BBC that the new diamond collection will be cheaper.

“We can essentially create the same outcome as nature has created, but at a very, very different price,” Lacik said, especially since the new diamonds can be made for as little as “a third of what it is for something that we’ve dug up from the ground.”

The new diamonds will be sold with a starting price of $350, or Php 16,765.

Last June, Pandora announced that it will also only use recycled gold and silver in its designs by 2025. —Kaela Malig/JCB, GMA News