As emerging players position themselves increasingly within the high-end segment and heavyweights like Pandora eschew using mined diamonds of their designs, the lab-grown diamond market is heating up by the day.

Touted as a more sustainable alternative to mined diamonds, lab-grown gems are also gaining traction against a backdrop of sanctions against Russia, a number one supplier of natural diamonds, and as rough diamond production continues to diminish, falling to 111 million carats, with a 5 percent decrease per yr for the reason that 2017 peak of 152 million carats, in accordance with a 2021 Bain study on the worldwide diamond industry.

But leading jewelry executives remain skeptical, noting that the segment poses many problems of its own, not least the energy used for his or her creation, depending on the placement where they’re made.

Greater than 50 to 60 percent of the world’s 6 million carats of lab-grown diamond production is manufactured in China using high-temperature, high-pressure technology, with India and the U.S. emerging as major production centers favoring chemical vapor deposition technologies.

“Lab-grown diamonds raise their very own issues,” said Cyrille Vigneron, chief executive officer of Cartier.

“On the one hand, we all know the tip customer is just not completely ready for them, and on the opposite, the transparency of the production chain is just not yet fully there. So we should not ready to contemplate them, knowing that the query of customer perception could also impact the symbolic value, and might ultimately be quite negative for the worth given to diamonds overall,” he added.

Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Nicolas Bos likewise cautioned against marketing lab-grown diamonds solely on an ecological narrative, which in his opinion amounted to false promoting.

While lab-grown stones may not find their way into the home’s designs, “they’ll provide very interesting creative opportunities [without] pretending to be a green alternative to the ‘bad people of the industry,’” he said.

“It’s a part of technology however it’s not a alternative. There are methods to make use of [them] that should not against traditional [jewelry]. It must be a distinct stream,” he continued, declaring the potential for growing diamonds in shapes not present in nature.

Though De Beers launched its lab-grown diamond offshoot Lightbox in 2018, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton became the primary major luxury player to take a position within the segment by taking a minority stake in Lusix, an Israel-based producer of lab-grown diamonds.

Its Tag Heuer watch brand used Lusix diamonds on its showpiece Carrera Plasma timepiece, unveiled on the Watches & Wonders show in Geneva last March, touting the design as “truly revolutionary.”

But Louis Vuitton chairman and CEO Michael Burke said he was not ready to change away from natural diamonds anytime soon.

“There are a lot of issues, which is why it’s a superb thing that LVMH is dipping a toe in it because we’d like to know what’s happening. We’d like to remain abreast of all of the progress, but it is vitally energy-intensive. In some points, the carbon footprint is higher than responsibly mined stones, so we’ve got to watch out of that,” he cautioned.

A 2021 study between lab-grown diamonds and mined diamonds published within the Basel-based MDPI journal found that considerations like energy, size of the diamond, machine used and conditions present affect the validity of catchall eco-claims.

“There are numbers on the market proving either way,” said Peter J. Ravenscroft, a veteran of the diamond and mining industry who founded the diamond brand Maison Mazerea.

Not least because calling lab-grown stones sustainable on the only real basis that they don’t require extraction is “simplistic” given the implications on the livelihood of communities depending on diamond mining, he continued.

Looking further, Ravenscroft believes there shall be “a bifurcation available in the market” where lab-grown stones “have a really valid place available in the market,” depending on whether or not the buyer is receptive to the “mystery and mystique” of the billion-year origin story of mined diamonds.

“There may be a really strong marketplace for individuals who would like to purchase a lab-grown diamond, and I fully understand that [but] there’ll all the time be individuals who want natural beauty. In case you’re talking about diamonds that you simply’re going to pay a few million euros for, you won’t be doing that for an artificial diamond,” Ravenscroft said.

But this lack of enthusiasm may be right down to an apples-to-pears comparison, especially with regards to sizes. Medium to large diamonds accounted for 25 percent of the production of volume in carats, but around 70 to 80 percent of the dollar value of the market, in accordance with the Bain report.

Meanwhile, the most important lab-grown roughs have just breached the 150-carat mark. The International Gemological Institute analyzed and graded a 30.18-carat emerald cut with an H color and VS2 clarity to be the primary polished lab-grown diamond to exceed 30 carats.

With investment pieces and stones — 79-carat diamonds particularly — taking pride of place at recent high jewelry presentations in Paris last July, technological advances that make growing larger quantities and sizes possible would also bring the worth per carat of lab-grown diamond down, said Chaumet CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt.

“Numerous people come to us to take a position. What is very important is seeing where clients stand and what they expect when buying at Chaumet, [which is] a stone that can hold its value throughout their lives, and even through generations,” he continued. “The secret’s not misleading the client.”

For all of the conversations around them, “in a way, lab-grown diamonds are still of their infant stage,” noted Charles Leung, chief executive officer of Fred.

The Parisian jewelry home is “open to explore more about lab grown diamonds in the longer term,” as an increasing variety of clients, especially in younger demographics, have a look at diamond jewelry as a fashion selection quite than an investment. This “will undoubtedly disrupt the industry,” he continued.

But there’s a fair longer-term vision. Keeping in mind house founder Fred Samuel, who had looked to cultured pearls as natural ones were becoming scarce, Leung identified that “in the future, there could be no more recent diamond mines on Earth. We could have to adapt.”