Are Lab Grown Diamonds Ethical?

Many lab-grown Diamonds are sold as being the ‘ethical’ choice but is this actually true?

This question is something that many consumers want to know before choosing whether to buy a lab-grown or natural Diamond and the problem is that there is a lot of ‘information’ out there that doesn’t really answer the question or is biased towards lab-grown or mined Diamonds. 

But this is where this post should come in helpful because as a Gemologist, I have spent a lot of time studying Diamonds and have created this post to hopefully give you a more balanced view as it doesn’t matter to me whether you buy a lab-grown or natural Diamond, so let’s get started…

Key Takeaways

• There is not enough information to say whether a lab-grown or mined Diamond uses more energy or produces more greenhouse gases in its production
• On a per-carat basis, Lab-Grown Diamonds have less of an impact on local environments and use less water in their production
• Mined Diamonds have a wider-reaching socio-economic impact, especially for countries with smaller and more fragile economies
• The ethical choice ultimately comes down to your personal principles and whether environmental or socio-economic impacts are more important

Are Lab-Grown Diamonds Better for the Environment?

When it comes to their ethical credentials, pretty much every lab-grown company will focus on their eco-credentials and say that they are better for the environment than a mined Diamond but is this true?

This isn’t a straightforward yes or no as there are many different factors involved when looking at the eco-credentials of both mined and lab-grown Diamonds but there are two main areas that we can look at.

Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

One of the things that is most often quoted (and also debated) is the amount of energy it requires to grow or mine a 1ct Diamond and how many greenhouse gases the process creates. 

But there is a big problem, which is that the two most quoted studies on this are, outdated, flawed and don’t stand up well under scrutiny because:

• The 2014 Frost and Sullivan Report (which is no longer accessible online) was found by JCK Online to have links to the International Grown Diamond Association
• The 2016 SPG report was paid for by the Diamond Producers Association 

And this is a problem for customers as they could be being told wrong or misleading information that influences their decision on which type of Diamond to buy. 

Another problem is that there is very little information out there about energy consumption of emissions from either type of Diamond production and the only credible (as far as I can tell) information I could find was a study that was published in 2021, which stated the following for energy consumption:

• Mined Diamonds – between 96kWh and 150kWh per carat 
• HPHT Diamonds – 36kWh per carat
• CVD Diamonds – 215kWh per carat (this closely matches the figure quoted by De Beers Lightbox Diamonds of 228kWh for CVD Diamonds)

Based on these figures, there isn’t much difference when it comes to the average energy used to produce a mined (123kWh) or lab-grown Diamonds (125.5kWh) but what do these figures actually mean? 

To try and put this into perspective, the average US household uses 29.5kWh of energy per day, meaning that none of these are exactly ‘green’ when it comes to energy usage.

There are also other variations that need to be factored in, including:

• Larger, high-quality lab-grown Diamonds take longer to grow, which means they require more energy
• Energy usage varies between Diamond mines depending on their location

But energy usage is only half the story because we also need to know how this energy is being created and the level of greenhouse gases that creating or mining a Diamond produces.

What is really disappointing about this is that I could only find one credible source for that talked about greenhouse gases, which was one again De Beers Lightbox, who state that every lab-grown carat they produce (CVD growth method) on average produces 30 kgCO2e but without information from other Diamond manufacturers or mines, this information is somewhat meaningless. 

But when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, there are some things to consider:

• The majority of lab-grown gem-quality Diamonds are produced in countries that primarily use coal as their main source of power (China 56% and India 55%)
• Mining involves the use of heavy, diesel-powered machinery, which isn’t the cleanest fuel source
• Many mining companies are investing in using renewable energy sources to help power their mines and reduce their carbon footprint
• There are lab-grown Diamond companies based in the Western world that use 100% renewable energy

On a carat vs carat basis, the lack of information and high number of variables means that it simply wouldn’t be possible to make any kind of blanket statement as to which one is ‘better’. 

But there is one issue that I have seen with every single mined vs lab-grown Diamond argument and that is that they are all done on a carat vs carats basis because when you look at total production, things don’t look favorable on the lab-grown side:

And I had to include industrial lab-grown Diamonds in this because there are no exact numbers of how many mined Diamonds are gem vs industrial quality, the closest we get is an estimate of 30% are of gem-quality but this varies year on year. 

What this data shows me is that:

1. Natural Diamond production doesn’t change that much and for the last 10 years (2013 – 2022), the average number of carats mined has been 129 million carats
2. Lab-grown Diamond production for both gem and industrial quality is increasing by significant amounts 

And there was one main observation that I came away from this research with, which is:

Natural Diamonds would be being mined with or without the invention of lab-grown Diamonds and while Diamond mines may have been slower in improving their eco-impact without the invention of their man-made counterparts, they still would have done it at some point as it is just the way the world is moving. 

And it could be argued that a Natural Diamond mined today could have a smaller carbon footprint than one mined 20 or 30 years ago due to:

• Improved mining processes
• More renewable energy being used

But lab-grown Diamonds are being produced in addition to their natural counterparts and as the main producers are China and India, followed by the USA, this means that lab-grown Diamonds are not only using a lot of energy but they are also producing more greenhouse gases, which is likely to increase as China and India are looking to increase production. 

Obviously, this is just my opinion but this lack of transparency and information from both sides makes things very difficult for the consumer to make an educated decision on which type of Diamond to buy, so let’s move on to the next thing…

Environmental Impact

The environmental impact is much easier to talk about than the two previous points as mining of any sort is going to have a more detrimental impact than lab-grown Diamonds that are manufactured in industrial units.

But what are the negative effects of Diamond mining:

1. Disruption of land – most Diamond mines require land to be removed in order for the Diamond to be removed from the host rock, this can result in the destruction or upset of local:
   • Fauna (plants, trees etc) 
   • Ecosystems 
   • Wildlife
2. Water Usage – one of the key aspects with Natural Diamonds is that water is required to clean the host rock from the Diamond, which does contaminate the water but unlike other types of large-scale mining, no chemicals have to be added to the water to achieve this
3. Heavy Machinery – this does fall under greenhouse gases but heavy diesel machinery does create more pollutants in the local environment

And for many large mining operations, the result of Diamond mining is a very large hole in the ground but how much rock needs to be mined to produce a 1-carat Diamond?

Well, the figure varies but there is a commonly quoted figure of 250 tonnes of ore for every 1 carat of Diamond and I’m not sure where this comes from but in Botswana in 2021, it ranged from 2.2 tonnes per carat to 8.3 tonnes per carat and some Canadian mines are estimated to yield 2.5 carats per ton, which is a lot different to 250 tonnes isn’t it?

But this isn’t the full picture as we no longer live in a time where a legitimate Diamond mining company comes into an area, mines it out and then leaves without any thought to what happens next and some of the things that are being done include:

• Having a reclamation plan in place for all of the mines that they are closing down
• Preserving land to compensate for their mining operations, for example, De Beers says that for every acre of land that is used for mining, 6 acres are dedicated to conservation (source: De Beers)

This is in addition to their move towards using more renewable energy sources and one thing that I think is quite interesting is that Kimberlite (the material from which Diamond is primarily mined) does have the potential to be used for carbon sequestration, which is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

So while Diamond mining isn’t great for the environment (no mining is though!), they are at least exploring and implementing ways to reduce their impact on the local environment but how does this compare to lab-grown Diamonds?

Lab-grown Diamonds don’t have much of an impact on the local environment, especially if the company uses a building for their factory that already exists but if a custom building is required, then this may have some impact. 

And one of the big things is that neither of the main manufacturing methods requires anywhere near the amount of water that a mined Diamond and this does give a clear advantage to lab-grown Diamonds. 

What About The Socio-Economic Impact Of Lab-Grown Diamonds?

When it comes to the marketing material of lab-grown Diamonds, much of it is heavily focused on the environmental side of things but some do briefly touch on the Socio-Economic impact but from everything I have seen, they do seem to cherry-pick certain things that help promote their product. 

That is why in this section, I’m going to be taking a deeper look into the socio-economic impact of both lab-grown and mined Diamonds as it is most definitely a thing to consider when choosing which Diamond to buy. 

Economic Impact of Lab-Grown Diamonds

The economic impact of lab-grown Diamonds is actually quite minimal because the top 5 countries that produce lab-grown Diamonds are some of the biggest economies in the world:

1. China – 2nd biggest economy
2. India – 5th biggest economy
3. USA – the biggest economy
4. Singapore – 34th biggest economy (impressive considering it is a small island and city state)
5. Russia – 8th biggest economy

But one of the concerns with lab-grown Diamonds is that they could take money and jobs away from countries where Diamond mining is an important part of their economy because the top 5 natural Diamond producing countries are:

1. Russia – 8th biggest economy
2. Botswana – 117th biggest economy
3. Canada – 9th biggest economy
4. Democratic Republic of Congo – 87th biggest economy
5. South Africa – 38th biggest economy

This shows that Natural Diamonds have a far wider reaching economic impact than lab-grown Diamonds and for some countries, Diamonds make up a notable percentage of the countries GDP such as Botswana (over 32%) and Namibia (around 10%), meaning that they are very important to their individual economies but also Africa as a whole, with Natural Diamonds generating over $8 Billion a year to the Economy. 

And even in Russia and Canada, Diamond mines are located in areas where they have a big impact on the local economy as they are mainly in areas that aren’t heavily industrialized, such as Canada’s Northwest Territories or Russia’s Sakha Republic. 

In comparison, lab-grown Diamond manufacturers are usually located in heavily industrialized areas such the Henan Province in China or Surat, India (also the world’s main center for cutting and polishing Diamonds). 

Social Impact of Lab-Grown Diamonds

Do lab-grown Diamonds have a social impact? Well, they provide jobs but as I already pointed out, these are jobs in industrialized areas or large cities of some of the world’s biggest economies and this means that they don’t have a large impact on local societies as they aren’t major employers. 

The story is somewhat different for the social impact of mined Diamonds as not only do they bring jobs (both directly and indirectly) to areas where there may not have been employment opportunities otherwise but the revenue generated from mining operations can and has been used to:

• Improve infrastructure
• Improve healthcare
• Provide education

In countries where Diamonds are mined but there have also been many instances where Diamond mining has had a negative social impact. 

The most notable of these are the blood/conflict Diamonds, which helped to fund the brutal civil wars that played out in many African nations during the 90s and early 2000s but the industry implemented the Kimberley Process in 2003 and while not perfect, has helped reduce the number of conflict Diamonds entering the supply chain. 

There are also many reports of human rights abuses at Diamond mines, which includes things like child labor but it should be pointed out that this mainly happens at small artisanal mining operations that aren’t regulated to anywhere near the level of large industrial mines and there are also the illegal mines, where it is pretty obvious that human rights aren’t high on the agenda. 

And while more needs to be done in the Diamond industry to address this, a lot of the responsibility falls on governments but on the flip side, most lab-grown Diamonds are produced in China and India, neither of which have exactly stellar histories when it comes to human rights. 

Conclusion

So are lab-grown Diamonds the more ethical choice? Unfortunately, there isn’t a yes or no answer.

This is because the definition of ethical according to the Oxford English Dictionary is ‘relating to moral principles’, which basically means that it comes down to your beliefs as to what is more important:

• If you believe that your Diamond having a smaller impact on the environment is most important, then a lab-grown Diamond, especially from certain producers is going to the more ethical for you
• If you believe that your Diamond should have a wider socio-economic impact, especially for people from countries with smaller economies is more important, then a mined Diamond is going to be the more ethical option for you

And one can answer that question but you but hopefully after reading this, you feel more informed about both sides of the argument as trying to research this is challenging due to the lack of independent information. 

Sources:

• Industrial lab diamond production 2022
• Industrial lab diamond production 2018
• Industrial lab diamond production 2020
• Lab-grown gem Diamond production 2022
• Lab-grown diamond production 2020
• Lab-grown diamond production in 2018
• World GDP

Paul Haywood FGA DGA

I'm Paul Haywood FGA DGA, the owner and founder of Haywoods Gems, I'm a fully qualified Gemmologist and Diamond Grader from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain.

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