Fair trade diamonds?

Following on from last week's post questioning the cleanliness of Canadian diamonds, we have asked Greg Valerio of Cred Jewellery, who are pushing for fair trade diamonds, for his thoughts on the issue. Over to Greg...

Firstly, due to the Kimberley Process the likelihood of someone buying a conflict diamond is now less than 1%.

The only main source for these stones is now the Cote D’Ivoire which will account for approx $23 million in an industry worth $60 billion.

This is however still very concerning and therefore important as $23 million buys a lot of guns.

Canadian Diamonds are, however, the best current source of stones for the following reasons if bought from certain companies.

• Canada is conflict free
• Consent has been given by native groups as to the land from which they are mined
• Mining companies have had to place financial securities with the Canadian Government as a fund to be used for restoration of the environment after the mining has been finished

The stones Cred uses have been mined, cut and polished in Canada, come with a certificate of origin, and have an environmental certificate as well. Currently, it is the best system in the world, but by no means foolproof.

Canadian stones do not, however, answer the problems of poverty and exploitation in Africa and this remains a serious concern. Cred continues to work on a fair trade process for diamonds which we believe is the answer to the issues surrounding alluvial diamonds.

Campaign NGOs are exactly what they are, campaign groups, they research and highlight the negative hoping that this will bring about the change they believe is the right one. Sometimes however their solution is wrong and because they are broadly unaccountable (they call it independent) and broadly disengaged from business they do not have the required knowledge to be able to respond holistically.

They will never be able to solve the problem because they are not in the diamond business, they are on the sidelines looking in. Global Witness and Amnesty International particularly are guilty of this. They have rightly highlighted issues that were/are occuring and for that we must be thankful. But they are not the answer.

When I have spoken to them, historically, they have not really grasped the extent of the social, environmental and livelihood issues diamond diggers face (this is the real violence in the diamond industry) nor have they had any creative ideas as to how to solve the problem. This has been their great failing, focusing on conflict to the neglect of the broader and more endemic issues.

This is why we are articulating as a social business that Fair Trade and a Fair Trade Diamond will begin to address these issues. There is much work to be done to deliver this idea, but the exciting thing is that we are making good progress and I anticipate a FT stone within the next 5 years. This will be 5 years too late for many people, it is for me, but guilt is the paymaster general of inertia, hope is the mother of justice and therefore we must deliver.

I hope this helps, if anyone wants more info you can contact us at info@cred.tv or visit our website www.cred.tv

Greg Valerio

If you are interested in reading more about conflict free diamonds then you can read more articles in the Ethical Weddings Conflict Free Diamond archive