Please Don’t Use Frost & Sullivan’s Lab-Grown Eco-Impact Report

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Please Don’t Use Frost & Sullivan’s Lab-Grown Eco-Impact Report

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It is interesting that this report in question is cited so often to assert the eco-friendliness of man-made diamonds, and this gives you some background and shows why those making claims based on it need to reassess the source of the claims. Although we'll have to watch for more data as it becomes available, according to the figures in this article natural diamond mining is a LOT more eco-friendly than synths. Who'da thunk?! Certainly not the synth labs. 8-)

Please Don’t Use Frost & Sullivan’s Lab-Grown Eco-Impact Report
June 21, 2019 by Rob Bates

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"A few months back, when I looked into the eco-impact of lab-grown diamonds, I considered discussing Frost & Sullivan’s 2014 “Environmental Impact Assessment,” which measured the eco-friendliness of man-made versus natural diamonds. But it didn’t seem worth going into. It is an old report. (It can still be downloaded here.)

Then I noticed that references to this report keep popping up, especially now that lab-grown companies face increased pressure to prove their eco-claims. In the last two months, the report was quoted in Gizmodo and Yahoo Lifestyle. MiaDonna’s annual Impact Reports are based on it. Clean Origin’s environmental impact page quotes it repeatedly.

Whatever its original merits, I don’t believe this five-year-old report should continue to be used. Here’s why:

– It was written in a very different time.

The report, which is not attributed to any specific analyst or author, came out in November 2014. Some of the data cited is from 2012—seven years ago.

To put that into perspective: This report was released before the premier of Diamond Foundry, before Lightbox, before Chinese producers started growing diamonds using high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT). Even though some call the report an industry-wide overview, it features data from only one producer, IIa Technologies in Singapore. IIa grows diamonds with the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, so the report has no info on the impact of HPHT—often used to create lab-grown side stones—or any other producer besides IIa.

– There appears to be an International Grown Diamond Association (IGDA) connection.

Some have called the report “independent.” But neither the report, nor the accompanying press release, makes that claim. The release describes Frost & Sullivan as a “growth partnership company that works in collaboration with clients.”

In February 2015, three months after the report was released, journalist Chaim Even-Zohar reported that Frost & Sullivan was listed as a consultant for the International Grown Diamond Association on a prototype website.
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A January 2015 screenshot from the prototype website for the International Grown Diamond Association

The consultancy isn’t mentioned in the report, and when the IGDA site did finally go live one year later, that paragraph wasn’t there.

When the report came out, I asked to interview the analysts, but was unable to. However, one Frost & Sullivan analyst did appear on a panel in September 2014 in Singapore, along with IIa Technologies chief executive officer Vishal Mehta, who is also the president of IGDA, and Dick Garard, who serves as IGDA’s secretary and is CEO of Microwave Enterprises, one of IIa’s partners.

Garard told me he “doesn’t think” Frost & Sullivan acted as IGDA consultants but is “not sure.” Melissa Tan, senior corporate communications manager for Frost & Sullivan’s Asia-Pacific region, says, “Unfortunately, this is an old report and the consultants working on this have left Frost so we are unable to comment.” A Frost & Sullivan analyst I spoke with told me the report “was done by junior analyst, for the association.”

– The emission numbers.

The report says that lab diamonds can be grown “with any form of energy up to 100% renewable energy.” Which is true, yet the key word is can. Even today, many—likely most—lab-grown diamonds are not produced with renewable energy.

The analyst used data from IIa in Singapore. According to the Singapore government:
As a small, resource-constrained country, Singapore imports almost all its energy needs, and has limited renewable energy options.

The report doesn’t mention whether IIa uses renewable energy, and it’s unclear if the 100% renewable energy number is factored into the report’s estimation that diamond mining releases 1.5 billion more emissions than growing diamonds.

Looking at that number, Benn Harvey-Walker, director of Ethical Jewellery Australia, wrote on LinkedIn:
If that seems extraordinary, even incredible, it turns out your suspicions are probably well-founded.

Now the indications are that lab-grown diamonds (on average) might be just as bad, if not worse than mine-origin product in terms of CO2 emissions per carat.

The report concludes that “mined diamonds represent more than 7 times the level of impact as compared to grown diamonds,” though I am not sure how 1.5 billion more emissions translates to seven times more impact.

– We shouldn’t be measuring industry-wide impact anyway.

In May, Trucost released a report ... "

https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-art ... -334329457
PinkDiamond
ISG Registered Gemologist


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