New Third-Party Diamond Standard Certifies World’s First Climate Neutral Lab-Grown Diamonds With Verified Origin
In late June 2021, Latitude a lab-grown diamond company that’s a division of the Washington D.C.-based WD Lab Grown Diamonds opened a new chapter in jewelry history by announcing that it is the world’s first and only diamond company to produce lab-grown diamonds that are carbon neutral, and what’s more, climate neutral. While diamonds have long been evaluated based on their cut, color, clarity and carat weight (collectively known as the 4 Cs), Latitude embodies the 5th C, or climate neutrality. 100 per cent third-party certified climate neutral is a rating that surpasses carbon neutral in environmental stewardship. At this moment in time, it appears that Latitude embodies the highest environmental sustainability distinction of any diamond, lab-grown or naturally mined. All of this has been made possible by the world’s most stringent benchmark of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) accountability for the diamond industry: the SCS Global Services’ Jewelry Sustainability Standard, titled SCS 007. Developed over the last decade by an international multi-stakeholder committee, SCS 007 is the first standard program to accurately trace a diamond's epic journey from origin to cutter to manufacturer to jewelry store to consumer. The standard's documented empirical chain of custody provisions guarantee provenance with 99% accuracy. What’s more, according to Stanley Mathuram, executive vice-president of SCS Global Services, “WD Diamonds offset, mitigated, and reduced its environmental impact by eighteen times through strategic sustainability investments and process improvements over their year-long odyssey to meet our scientific standard and receive certification.” It is worth noting that along with WD Lab Grown Diamonds, other initial stakeholders who have signed up to undergo the process that will lead to attaining the SCS standard certification include such global jewelry brands as Swarovski, Goldiam, LUSIX Lab-Grown Diamonds, GreenRocks Created Diamonds and Nouveau Diamond.
Developed after years of internationally coordinated scientific research, meetings, and multiple draft documents, SCS 007 represents the first comprehensive, multi-stakeholder sustainability standard for both natural diamond and lab-grown diamond sectors. In addition to industrial-scale, naturally mined diamonds and laboratory produced diamonds, SCS 007 also applies to cutting and polishing facilities as well as grading laboratories that take temporary custody of diamonds during their journeys. (The standard is being managed by SCS Standards, the non-profit standards development arm of SCS Global Services.)
Notably, the standard focuses on the sustainability of the diamond production operation, rather than whether it was sourced from a mine or a lab. As Mathuram related, “SCS 007 provides the first unified, industry-wide statement of responsibility to workers, communities and the environment. Our plan,” he continues, “is to donate a percentage of certification fees to fund and train smaller, artisanal diamond operations so that they can formalize their operations and also benefit from this standard.” The SCS 007 standard is based on five pillars of achievement, the first of which is verified origin traceability. This entails guaranteeing the origin of each certified diamond through advanced testing, gem identification protocols, surveillance audits and sampling across the supply chain...
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