Millennials and Generation Z increasingly embracing lab-grown diamonds

When Isabelle Crew selected a lab-grown diamond as a substitute of a historically mined sparkler for her engagement ring, one buddy warned her it might have a decrease resale worth.

However with the 1.7-carat oval-shaped diamond solitaire of her desires twinkling on her finger, the 28-year-old Toronto lady says she discovered it simple to chortle off these issues.

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“That is an engagement ring. I actually hope I don’t should resell it some day,” Crew stated.

Three years later, Crew – who selected a lab-grown diamond primarily for environmental and social causes – stays fortunately married and completely satisfied along with her ring. And the “resale worth” remark however, Crew stated most individuals’s reactions to her selection have been constructive.

“I’ve had so many compliments on my engagement ring … and I feel now actually at the very least 5 of my pals have adopted swimsuit,” she stated.

Greater than 70 years after worldwide mining large De Beers got here up with its massively worthwhile “A Diamond is Endlessly” promoting marketing campaign, diamonds have grown right into a US$84-billion market.

However whereas the diamond continues to be embraced in 2022 as an emblem of lasting love, millennials and Technology Z are more and more rejecting stones shaped naturally within the Earth’s crust in favour of artificial, lab-grown options.

In reality, trade statistics present that lab-created diamonds are outpacing development within the general diamond market. Whereas lab-grown diamonds make up solely about 10 per cent of whole gross sales, their share of the general market greater than doubled between 2020 and 2022.

Lab-grown diamonds are actual, not pretend, they usually have the identical bodily, chemical and optical traits as mined diamonds. However reasonably than occurring naturally over the span of billions of years, man-made diamonds are created in labs utilizing a vastly accelerated course of that takes simply weeks.

Most lab-grown diamonds immediately are created utilizing a course of known as chemical vapour disposition, or CVD. A small slice of a diamond, or “seed,” is positioned in a sealed chamber which is then crammed with compressed gases (often methane and hydrogen). The chamber is then heated, which splits the gases and permits the carbon atoms to start to “construct” across the diamond.

The result’s a gem that, to the bare eye, is similar to a pure one, stated Luke Sinclair, chief monetary officer of Groupe RSL. The Canadian firm makes use of hydroelectricity to energy its lab-made diamond course of at a facility in Quebec.

“The distinction actually lies within the client notion of the 2. That’s actually the one distinction,” stated Sinclair.

“When you concentrate on it, it’s a bit humorous that lab diamonds are perceived as non-luxury simply because they’re man-made,” Sinclair stated. “Most, if not all, luxurious items are man-made. Purses, vehicles, sneakers – these are all man-made, luxurious objects.”

A part of the attract of lab-grown diamonds for customers is that as a result of they are often mass-produced and don’t have the rarity of pure diamonds they promote for, on common, about half the price of a standard stone – although which will change sooner or later as lab diamonds turn into extra common.

However many younger customers are additionally drawn to the sustainability claims. In line with a 2018 survey by MVI Advertising LLC, 70 per cent of millennial-aged customers would contemplate shopping for a lab-grown different in an effort to scale back the carbon footprint, deforestation and wildlife habitat loss related to conventional diamond mining, in addition to ease issues about baby labour and different human rights abuses within the world mining trade.

Jamie Kneen, program co-lead with the non-profit group Miningwatch Canada, stated lab-grown diamonds are a more sensible choice for quite a lot of environmental and social causes – and added he believes they’ve the long-term potential to considerably disrupt the standard mining trade.

“There are some vitality use implications with the lab-grown diamonds, but it surely’s by no means on the identical scale as digging an enormous crater and crushing thousands and thousands of tonnes of rock.”

As customers more and more search for options to conventional diamonds, retailers are taking discover. For instance, Pandora, the world’s largest jeweller, lately launched a brand new assortment of lab-created diamond jewelry at its U.S. and Canadian retail shops.

“The lab-grown (section) is a really small fraction of the general market. However the knowledge exhibits it’s rising at double the tempo of the mined diamonds,” stated Lucian Rodembusch, Pandora’s North American president, in an interview.

“We consider that an increasing number of – when you perceive that there isn’t a distinction chemically, bodily, or visually and the value is way more inexpensive – I feel naturally we’ll begin to see an increasing number of migration.”

Pandora has additionally acknowledged its intention to cease utilizing mined diamonds totally, a call that fits youthful customers more and more involved in regards to the environmental and human rights impression of conventional diamond mining.

Some customers nonetheless see lab-grown diamonds as much less particular their naturally occurring counterparts – maybe not shocking contemplating one other profitable diamond trade marketing campaign additionally managed to persuade generations of lovers that an engagement ring ought to price “two months’ wage.”

However Crew, the Toronto newlywed, doesn’t purchase into the argument that the higher the spend, the larger the love.

“Actually, I feel it’s a bit unusual that anybody would assume there’s a unfavorable connotation to (lab-grown diamonds),” she stated. “It simply looks like a prudent monetary and environmental and moral resolution to make. And the arguments in opposition to it don’t appear significantly logical or compelling to me.”