When Aret Oymakas began promoting diamonds years in the past, engagement ring customers got here in on the lookout for one factor for his or her brides-to-be: an actual, mined diamond.
“It was only a diamond,” mentioned Oymakas, proprietor of Livia Diamonds in Toronto. “And you bought what you had been capable of get … by way of design and funds.”
Today, not a lot.
Lab-grown diamonds have change into massively common lately, giving the normal, mined model a run for its cash.
Oymakas says pure diamonds made up 100 per cent of his enterprise till 2018 when lab-grown diamonds got here available on the market in a giant means. Now, pure diamonds account for under three to 4 per cent of his enterprise.
Based on specialists like Oymakas, ethics, value and the rising value of each different a part of life for brand spanking new {couples} has chipped away on the reputation of actual diamonds. And that is having a big effect on the mining enterprise — together with in Canada’s North.
WATCH | Northern mining trade takes a success as lab-grown diamond reputation surges:
Northern mining trade takes a success as lab-grown diamond reputation surges
A whole bunch of persons are being laid off at a diamond mine within the Northwest Territories as manufacturing halts, signaling a shifting trade. Lab-grown diamonds are surging in reputation, providing an analogous sparkle for a fraction of the worth.
Simply final week, Burgundy Diamond Mines introduced it might be shedding a whole bunch of workers and quickly suspending operations at one in every of its open-pit mining websites, Level Lake, within the Northwest Territories.
A communications supervisor for the corporate, Ariella Calin, mentioned the open-pit mine was “proving to be sub-economic,” given the latest drop within the worth of diamonds. Based on knowledge from Tenoris, which tracks diamond retail costs, pure diamonds in shops now value 26 per cent much less than they did simply two years in the past.
Canada exported $2.21 billion price of diamonds in 2019, making it the third largest diamond producer on this planet on the time. And with three diamond mines within the Northwest Territories alone, the diamond trade employs 1000’s of individuals straight in that province and plenty of extra not directly in response to specialists, which means declines out there could have an outsized affect within the North.
Mined vs. lab grown?
Mined diamonds are cast deep within the earth by way of warmth, strain and time, earlier than they’re dug up, crafted into form and set into jewellery, akin to engagement rings.
Lab-grown diamonds primarily replicate that course of above floor — utilizing chemical compounds and excessive warmth, diamonds are cast in a chamber in a matter of weeks.
“I all the time make the analogy of ice made in your refrigeration system versus ice made outdoors within the chilly,” Oymakas mentioned. “Bodily they’re an identical. There isn’t any distinction in any respect.”
However some specialists stress there may be nonetheless a distinction.
Graham Pearson, professor with the College of Alberta’s division of earth and atmospheric sciences, says that the pure formation of diamonds deep underground ends in a “complexity” you may’t get with the lab-grown selection.
“What you get with (a pure diamond) is that you simply’re holding a tremendous fragment of the deepest a part of the earth. A pure diamond is exclusive,” he mentioned.
Lab-grown diamonds, he argues, are all the identical, made out of a precise recipe — like a print of a portray.
Why have folks flocked to lab-grown?
To engagement ring customers, nonetheless, the one seen distinction within the price ticket, in response to Oymakas.
Whereas a two-carat actual diamond engagement ring may cost a little $35,000, Oymakas says a two-carat lab-grown diamond with the identical readability and color might solely be about $3,500.
Aret Oymakas, proprietor of Livia Diamonds, holds two diamonds — the one on the left is lab grown, and the one on the fitting is mined. With out particular instruments, you may’t inform which one was mined and which is man-made, says Oymakas. (Derek Hooper/CBC)
“With the price of every part going up nowadays — housing, wedding ceremony bills — folks do not wish to lay our a fortune on a hoop,” Oymakas mentioned.
Which means folks can afford far larger stones in the event that they purchase artificial, usually nonetheless for lower than what a pure diamond would have value.
The know-how used to make lab-grown diamonds has additionally dramatically improved since they first got here onto the scene, in response to Oymakas. He says this enables them to create extra customizable stones which have a novel form or tone as an example, and that is confirmed to be a draw to clients.
Ethics are one more reason. Compelled labour and baby labour are issues within the diamond mining trade in Africa particularly, and the troublesome bodily work usually yields little pay. Many patrons wish to keep away from “blood diamonds” — stones mined in African battle zones that in flip are used to fund insurgent actions. Whereas a global grading system known as the Kimberley Course of has since been instituted to assist customers know the place their diamonds come from, there’s nonetheless debate about how effectively the system works.
Stefanie Beninger, an affiliate professor of selling at Nyenrode Enterprise College within the Netherlands who has researched the advertising of diamonds, says the moral part performed a giant function within the pure diamond’s demise.
The blockbuster 2006 film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio uncovered many customers to the realities of the diamond mining trade. So, years later, when lab-grown diamonds that did not carry the identical moral considerations emerged available on the market, customers had been drawn to them, Beninger mentioned. (Pearson factors out that lab-grown diamonds do, nonetheless, take plenty of power to forge in a lab, which means they’re not totally freed from adverse impacts both.)
Past that, Beringer says the shift has been generational. De Beers’s well-known “A diamond is endlessly” slogan bought child boomers and Gen Xers on diamond engagement rings as a standard image of tolerating love, Beninger mentioned.
However millennials aren’t shopping for it. Beringer says that era, in addition to Gen Z, has confronted important monetary challenges, on high of being extra socially aware.
A drone shot of the Ekati diamond mine within the Northwest Territories. The Level Lake mine that was idled final week is one in every of two operations on the Ekati diamond mine. (Arctic Canadian Diamond Firm)
“From a purposeful perspective, (artificial diamonds) work the identical. It is rather a lot cheaper, and it is extra traceable the place this got here from,” Beninger mentioned.
And, Beninger says fewer millenials are getting married in comparison with their dad and mom or grandparents — a Pew Analysis examine discovered that as of 2021, 25 per cent of 40-year-olds had by no means been married, a brand new document. In 1980, that determine was simply six per cent.
The diamond trade launched a “Actual is uncommon” marketing campaign in 2016, Beninger factors out, which tried to market actual diamonds to millennials in a much less conventional means.
In wanting on the gross sales of lab grown versus pure diamonds, Beninger says it is clear that the marketing campaign did not pull them again to the mined selection. The thought of a mined diamond as “actual” and a lab-grown one as faux simply hasn’t caught with youthful generations, Beninger mentioned.
Northern mining enterprise in hassle
For Oymakas, decrease diamond costs have not harm his enterprise. He says whereas the worth of the rock itself has dropped, persons are shopping for larger artificial diamonds or maybe shopping for extra jewellery as a result of the worth is extra reasonably priced.
LISTEN | The N.W.T.’s diamond mines misplaced tens of millions of {dollars} in 2024:
The TrailbreakerThe N.W.T.’s diamond mines misplaced tens of millions of {dollars} in 2024.
Nevertheless it’s a unique story for Canada’s North, the place 1000’s of persons are straight employed in diamond mines within the Northwest Territories.
“That area of the nation in plenty of circumstances relies on diamonds for (its) livelihood,” Zimnisky mentioned.
There are three diamond mines within the Northwest Territories — and all of them at the moment are winding down operations. Diavik diamond mine is ready to shut early subsequent 12 monthswhereas the Gahcho Kué mine’s estimated lifespan is ready to 2031.
Pearson says the closure of the trade in Canada’s North could have a “great” affect — with what Pearson estimates would lead to 1,500 direct jobs and plenty of extra oblique ones misplaced, plus an exodus of individuals from northern communities.
The Ekati diamond mine, which the Level Lake mine is a part of, was the primary within the nation when it opened in 1998. To have the trade shutter after solely 30 years can be a disgrace, says Pearson.
“It took many, a few years and plenty of tens of millions of {dollars} price of effort to only discover the diamonds … and it would all be over quickly,” Pearson mentioned. “That might be an absolute tragedy.”
