As the 2024 CIBJO Congress approaches, the industry is grappling with the complexities of ensuring ethical provenance in coloured gemstone supply chains. The fifth pre-Congress Special Report, released by the CIBJO Coloured Stone Commission, delves into the challenges faced by members of the sector in maintaining ethical practices throughout the sourcing and manufacturing processes.
The report, prepared under the leadership of Charles Abouchar, highlights the difficulties of verifying the precise source of each coloured gemstone due to unevenly enforced regulations across different countries. While the industry supports ethical progress, the absence of uniform standards can hinder efforts to create traceable supply chains.
While acknowledging the measures that can be taken to ensure ethical sourcing, Abouchar emphasised the limitations of current systems. Limiting purchases to goods from dealers who can demonstrably comply with proper standards can be discriminatory and limit market competitiveness, especially in a sector dominated by artisanal mining.
Despite these challenges, the report encourages industry members to continue working towards ethical and traceable supply chains. The Coloured Stone Commission recommends utilising tools developed by CIBJO, such as the Responsible Sourcing Blue Book and Toolkit, to aid in these efforts.
The report also addresses other pressing issues within the coloured gemstone sector, including the proliferation of marketing descriptors, colour instability in treated sapphires, the impact of new research on older gem lab reports, and inconsistencies in origin reporting.