De Beers announced 12 sustainability goals for the next decade, including making its operations carbon-neutral, providing traceability for all its diamonds, and achieving gender parity in all its operations.
The 12 goals—which De Beers describes as ambitious and were developed through years of brainstorming—are part of the company’s new Building Forever framework that is being used to support De Beers’ increased promotion of its brand name.
De Beers will meet these goals in part by using proprietary technology it has developed, including Tracr, a blockchain-based program that provides a way to determine a diamond’s origin, and CarbonVault, which captures carbon from the atmosphere and stores it in kimberlite, the rock in which diamonds are found. The company has been working on some of the other 12 goals, like gender parity, for some time.
The goals stem from four pillars: leading ethical practices across industry; partnering for thriving communities; protecting the natural world; and accelerating equal opportunity.
Goals within those pillars include developing scalable solutions for artisanal miners, a goal that will likely involve another of the company’s ongoing projects, GemFair; supporting four jobs in each of its partner countries for every one job at its operations; reducing its water footprint by 50%; increasing the diversity of creative talent in the diamond jewelry sector; achieving a net positive impact on biodiversity; and supporting 10,000 women entrepreneurs and engaging 10,000 girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects.
De Beers says it’s committed to meeting these goals by 2030. More information on these goals can be seen here.
“We have both a unique opportunity and a profound responsibility to create lasting benefits for the people and places where diamonds are discovered,” said De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver in a statement. “This is why our Building Forever sustainability framework is central to our business strategy, and why we have set ourselves these 12 ambitious goals.”
(Image courtesy of De Beers)
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