Conflict Free Diamonds

Boulder opal and ruby earrings

A number of years ago I wrote this post in which I discussed the issue of conflict diamonds and the surrounding uproar.  You might want to read it again before watching the You Tube video that I'm posting here.  In the article I was clear that there is absolutely no way to guarantee where a diamond comes from since any type of tracking method can be worked around if criminals are truly interested in doing so.

More importantly however is that the reason I'm posting this video is to show that just because a company decides to market themselves as environmentally friendly or conflict free doesn't actually mean that they are. I have long had an issue with this particular company because I know some of their former suppliers and they weren't really doing what they claimed to be doing.  I actually think that they started out with good intentions but I believe they got some significant venture capitalists backing them and in order to satisfy their need for profits they sacrificed their ethical standards because the volume of business required simply cannot be satisfied by the sources they claim to be using.  There are only so many diamonds produced in Canada.   There are only so many unheated, natural color sapphire.  With the amount this company seems to be selling they would pretty much have to have cornered the market on these goods and I can assure you that they haven't.

So take a few minutes and watch this:

I just realized that the original video was removed from sight (I believe because of the lawsuit involved) but the first ten minutes of this video explain pretty much everything.