Lab Grown Diamonds Save Human Lives – PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Portland businesswoman is trying to save lives by putting a new twist on what she says is an antiquated industry.
Anna-Mieke Anderson is the founder and CEO of MiaDonna — one of the first companies to offer lab-grown diamonds. She started the company after learning her own engagement ring was a conflict diamond.
In many countries, such gemstones are mined under horrific conditions. “Consumers need to know that conflict diamonds still exist even in 2019,” she said.
Today, just one in nine diamonds can be traced back to where it came from, despite the Clean Diamond Trade Act of 2003 which prohibits “rough” (conflict) diamonds that haven’t been certified through something called the “Kimberley Process” from entering or leaving the United States.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is an internationally-recognized certification system that imposes extensive requirements on participating nations to allow them to certify shipments of rough diamonds as “conflict-free.” It also works to prevent conflict diamonds from entering legitimate trade.
But Anderson said there are many loopholes in the system because the KPCS defines a conflict diamond as a “rough diamond mined in an area controlled by insurgent forces and used to fund war.”
“A child could have mined that diamond, somebody could have been brutally enslaved and raped and murdered to mine that diamond but then it’s marketed to the consumer as a ‘conflict-free diamond’ which is very unfortunate,” she said.
RELATED: The Origin Of The Diamond Gemstone
Consumers can easily avoid the issue altogether by purchasing diamonds created in labs. Anderson said lab-grown stones are better quality than those forged by nature, can be 40% cheaper and have seven times less of an impact on the environment.
In the lab, a chemical reaction causes a piece of carbon to grow into a sizable diamond in about six to 12 weeks.
“They are both chemically, physically and optically identical — there is no difference,” Anderson explained. “It’s like making ice in your freezer versus ice on a glacier; no matter the origin, they are still the same chemical compound.”
