Survey: Jewelers tackled conflict-diamond issue

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Survey: Jewelers tackled conflict-diamond issue

February 05, 2007

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New York—Two-thirds of jewelry retailers polled in a post-holiday 2006 survey say they had customers ask them about conflict diamonds, and 97 percent of those retailers were prepared to answer the questions, according to survey results released today by the World Diamond Council (WDC).

The study, conducted in the United States in January by GfK, one of the world's largest independent research agencies, also indicates that 88 percent of the jewelers surveyed had either asked for or received guarantees from their suppliers that all the diamonds they purchased from those companies were conflict-free.

"While more work needs to be done to completely eliminate conflict diamonds from the supply chain, we are encouraged by the extent to which both consumers and retailers seem to be aware of and addressing the issue," WDC Chairman Eli Izhakoff said in a press release.

As part of an ongoing effort to eliminate conflict diamonds from the supply pipeline, the WDC has worked to educate both consumers and retailers about conflict diamonds. The diamond industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individual governments have spent years on efforts to stamp out the trade in conflict diamonds.

Last year's release of the film Blood Diamond, which put the issue in the forefront of consumers' minds just before the holiday season and prompted the industry to re-educate itself on the issue, provided a litmus test of how well those efforts went.

While more work remains, the WDC says, the survey proves that its educational efforts played a role in helping to eradicate conflict diamonds from the legitimate diamond pipeline, the release said.

What's more, 89 percent of jewelers said they had trained their staff to handle customer questions about the issue, while four out of five said they felt confident of their ability to explain the United Nations-mandated Kimberley Process, the government-regulated system that makes it possible for retailers to guarantee that the diamond jewelry they sell is from a conflict-free source.

Under the Kimberley Process Certification System, which was developed by the diamond industry in partnership with the United Nations, NGOs and individual governments, only diamonds certified as coming from conflict-free sources may be exported or imported by member nations. Today, the United States and 70 other nations, representing 99.8 percent of world diamond production, are Kimberley Process members, according to the WDC.

The GfK survey involved 318 jewelry retailers, ranging from small independent stores to national chains, department stores and Internet outlets. The sample is considered representative of 90 percent of the U.S. retail diamond business.

Full survey results are available at Diamondfacts.org.

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