Unlike the diamonds that they offer, the world of jewellery isn’t very transparent about where its gemstones come from.
That’s why it’s a big deal that Tiffany & Co., the iconic American jewellery juggernaut, is pledging to reveal that very information, and then some. From October, all of the luxury brand’s new diamonds weighing more than 0.18 carats will come with a certificate tracing their entire craftsmanship journey.
That means you’ll get to see exactly where each diamond is sourced, cut, polished and set, before being presented to you in that iconic Tiffany Blue Box (which, by the way, is now sustainably made with paper from FSC-certified and recycled materials). It will make your purchase that much more peaceful, especially if you care about the environmental and social impacts of your actions.
Tiffany & Co. clearly does. By offering complete diamond traceability, the luxury jewellery brand singles itself out from the rest of the industry, which remains mostly opaque about the origins of its stones. Diamonds, after all, have a dirty history; their trade have funded wars and employed the use of forced and child labour, amongst many other human rights violations that still continue today. All of that can be easily covered up in the complex diamond supply chain.
It’s even harder to detail every step of that supply chain, but that’s what Tiffany & Co. now promises to do. Its diamond certificates will reveal where the American jeweller has purchased its rough stones (Australia, Botswana and Canada are some of the countries where its trusted suppliers are based) before they’re sorted in Belgium. You’ll also learn where those diamonds are (safely) cut and polished, before being graded in one of the Tiffany Gemological Laboratories, and finally set in the brand’s US workshops.
All this information has been painstakingly compiled by Tiffany & Co. in a process that began 20 years ago. Yet it will certainly pay off today, as shoppers have become more conscientious and now choose only to invest in sustainable and ethical brands. In that vein, Tiffany & Co. also has another thing going for it: in 2019, the brand set a new industry standard in transparency by selling its solitaire diamonds in the country where they’re mined.
The new, unprecedented initiative, then, shows how committed Tiffany & Co. is to the many causes people care about. And now that a brand that big has set an example, let’s hope the rest of the jewellery industry follows suit.
Header photo credit: Tiffany & Co.
Pameyla Cambe
Senior Writer
Pameyla Cambe is a fashion and jewellery writer who believes that style and substance shouldn't be mutually exclusive. She makes sense of the world through Gothic novels, horror films and music. Lots of music.
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