CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, says it’s reexamining the question of what to call lab-grown diamonds, but contrary to some reports, it hasn’t made any decisions on the matter yet.
Last month, in a special report published on CIBJO’s website, Udi Sheintal, head of the organization’s diamond commission, argued that CIBJO’s Diamond Blue Book should no longer endorse the term laboratory-grown for non-natural stones and that they should instead be called synthetic. The Diamond Blue Book currently approves both terms.
At the CIBJO Congress in Paris this week, the event’s host, Bernadette Pinet-Cuoq, executive president of French jewelry association UFBJOP, endorsed that change.
“It is essential to question the acceptability of the word laboratory, and to reestablish a clear boundary between natural diamonds and synthetic ones,” she said.
Despite all this, CIBJO president Gaetano Cavalieri tells JCK the group has not agreed on what it will do, and there’s a long, deliberative process ahead.
“We haven’t decided to go back to synthetic,” he says. “It is up to the diamond commission to put this on the agenda. Most likely, we will put it on the agenda.”
“But the decision process at CIBJO is not easy. It’s very complicated. It has to pass through committees, and then it has to be passed on another committee, and then it goes to the commission, and to the sector, and then to the board of directors.”
This process could take a year or longer, says Cavalieri.
“We will do our homework, so we make the right decision,” he says. “I don’t know what it will be.… The market is asking that industry authorities consider [the issue]. So we’re considering it.”
Lab-grown sellers will almost certainly oppose the requested change, as they have long considered the term synthetic pejorative. Cavalieri says CIBJO will take all opinions into account.
“Everyone is welcome to speak up,” he says. “We are open. We never say one part of the industry is good, the other part is bad. We have someone from the lab-grown community on our lab-grown committee.”
While Cavalieri didn’t endorse the change, he seems at least sympathetic to it.
“CIBJO’s main mission is consumer confidence,” he says. “[Using the word synthetic] does not mean that one is real and the other is fake. It simply means they are two different products.”
“The bottom line is that [lab-grown] prices have fallen. And when the prices fall, the people who bought the piece at $1,000 and then see the same product is $100 may feel that it is not a good choice.”
Image : CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri and UFBJOP Executive President Bernadette Bernadette Pinet-Cuoq opening the 2025 CIBJO Congress in Paris on October 27, 2025
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
Source : JCK online