In this age of sanctions, determining the origin of jewelry components remains a problem, yet the picture is not all negative, speakers agreed during a panel on “Origin, Source, and Provenance,” held during the Initiatives in Art and Culture’s 14th annual Gold + Diamonds Conference on July 16 in New York City.

Sara Yood, president, CEO, and general counsel of Jewelers Vigilance Committee (JVC), said that the recently instituted G7 sanctions against Russian diamonds are prodding jewelers to learn more about their supply chains.

“You need to be talking to your suppliers on a regular basis to find out what they are doing to make sure their sources are not violating sanctions and what kind of measures they are putting in place to track and trace goods that are coming in,” she said. “If you don’t have a strong relationship with your supplier, and you can’t get answers to these questions, you need to start building that now. Because these questions are essential for sourcing going forward.”

She noted that the industry has improved its sourcing protocols considerably since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“A few years ago, when you asked questions [about origin], not everyone had answers,” Yood said. “Those answers have changed over the last few years. Business are more equipped to answer them, and they’re starting to understand what kind of documents can back up their statements.”

She added that while most of the G7’s attention has been focused on Russian diamonds, she expected that it will eventually impose measures against Russian gold and platinum.

David Block, CEO of Sarine Technologies, said his company is working with De Beers’ Tracr to develop a “robust system” for diamond tracking that meets the G7’s requirements.

“We focus a lot on the first time a diamond enters the system at the mines,” he said. “If you look at the producers, there aren’t a lot of them in the diamond industry, unlike gemstones that have many alluvial sources. Many are organized, larger players.”

He said that while a “foolproof system” is “unattainable,” he thinks the industry will eventually develop “a robust system that the consumer trusts.”

One persistent challenge remains the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector, which accounts for an estimated 10 percent of the world’s production. Tracking ASM diamonds is “challenging,” Block admitted, though he hoped that initiatives like De Beers’ GemFair could help with that.

However, another panelist, Ruby Stocklin-Weinberg, program manager for GemFair, worried most ASM producers won’t be able to provide the documentation these systems require.

“Unless there was some kind of conduit upstream that was helping miners get on that platform, I don’t see how that would be possible,” she said.

She said that GemFair has been working in Sierra Leone since 2019 to improve mining conditions and safety standards in the country’s diamond sector.

“The sector in Sierra Leone is really different than the perceptions that a lot of people have from the conflict that ended over two decades ago. The risks that we are concerned about—human rights, child labor—are just not an issue in the diamond sector in Sierra Leone.

“What we do have challenges with is ensuring that the miners have a license to operate, that they’re working in the formal sector, that government is getting the royalties they should be, that the mines are being reclaimed in a way that’s responsible, and that the workers are treated well and safely.”

GemFair currently isn’t marketing its diamonds as a distinct brand, though they can be purchased from San Francisco–based D’Amadeo, run by San Francisco–based jeweler Jared Holstein.

Adriano Mol, head of the Center for Gemstone and Jewelry Design at the University of Minas Gerais State, talked about his efforts to brand Brazilian tourmaline from the Cruzeiro mine in Minas Gerais.

“For years, we weren’t doing much to promote provenance from Brazil. When people would ask where the gemstone came from, we would get mad. We thought the stone is beautiful, it is nice, why do you want to know where it comes from?”

But he has since come to believe that promoting provenance can have real benefits.

“It’s all a branding game,” Mol said. “If the brand is more sought-after, it will command a higher price. A Brazilian emerald sells for less than a Colombian emerald. You have to ask why. It’s the brand. We have to do a better work promoting Brazil, so people understand what a quality product we have.”

Yet touting provenance also brings risks, particularly if you’re billing a product as American-made, Yood said.

“The Federal Trade Commission has said if you’re going to call something made in the USA or made in America, not only does it actually have to be made in the United States, but all the component parts have to originate in the United States. With jewelry, as you can imagine, this is nearly impossible. Even if you’re making the jewelry in your Brooklyn studio with recycled gold, that is not enough to prove origin.”

The JVC does have some “qualifying wording” it recommends, such as “made in the USA with Italian gold” or “made in the USA with the world’s finest materials.”

U.S. lab-grown diamond producers also have to be careful with their made in America claims, Yood said, particularly if their diamonds are cut in India or China.

“As we have all learned in the last two years, cutting and polishing a diamond changes the country of origin of that diamond. You can say the diamond was originally created in the United States but you have to qualify that it was cut somewhere else.”

The panel was moderated by the author of this article.

Photo courtesy of GemFair

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