The diamond industry has spent decades trying to address questions around sustainability, traceability, ethics and responsible sourcing. These are important issues, but the experience of the SCS-007 certification programme demonstrates that creating another standard or certification does not necessarily solve the problems it was designed to address.

SCS Global Services recently ended its SCS-007 Sustainably Produced Gemstones certification programme, which had operated for several years. The programme was intended to provide independent, product-level verification of environmental, social, governance, climate and traceability claims.

SCS said the decision was made because the market conditions required to support the voluntary standard at scale had not developed.

Two issues were highlighted: certification had not been adopted by the mining sector, and there was no clear regulatory framework for product-level chain-of-custody claims across an increasingly fragmented supply chain.

That is significant.

A certification system can only be effective if enough of the industry participates. If producers, miners, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are not all operating within the same system, the certification can become another layer of complexity rather than a complete solution.

SCS had achieved participation from lab-grown diamond producers, diamond handlers and retailers. In March 2024, it reported eight lab-grown diamond producers, 12 diamond handlers and 65 retailers across 14 countries, with more than 100,000 certified diamonds sold through more than 500 stores.

Yet there was a fundamental gap: participation from the natural diamond mining sector was not comparable.

The programme had begun in 2020 as a trial-use standard for diamonds. It subsequently expanded across the supply chain, with certification covering producers, cutters, polishers, wholesalers and retailers. In 2024, a final diamond standard covering both natural and lab-grown diamonds was published, followed in 2025 by an expansion into emeralds, rubies and sapphires.

Ultimately, however, the programme was discontinued.

The lesson for the diamond industry

The lesson is not that sustainability, responsible sourcing or traceability are unimportant. Quite the opposite.

The lesson may be that the solution cannot always be another certification programme.

The diamond trade is an extraordinarily complex international supply chain. Diamonds can pass through mining companies, government-controlled systems, rough dealers, manufacturers, polishers, wholesalers, laboratories and retailers before reaching the consumer.

Trying to solve every issue with paperwork, certification and increasingly complicated compliance systems can create the appearance of control without necessarily addressing the underlying problem.

The history of the “blood diamond” debate provides another example of how complicated these issues can become.

The term became internationally recognised because of the role diamonds played in financing armed conflicts in parts of Africa. The Kimberley Process was subsequently established to restrict the trade in rough diamonds associated with rebel movements.

That was an important response to a genuine problem. However, the broader political and humanitarian circumstances surrounding diamond-producing countries were considerably more complicated than the simple idea of “conflict diamonds” suggested. Governments, armed groups, political interests and international businesses could all have competing interests, and a certification system alone could not resolve corruption, conflict or human-rights abuses within sovereign states.

This is where the diamond industry needs to be careful.

A diamond certificate can verify a diamond. It cannot, by itself, fix a government, end corruption, prevent political abuse or solve the social problems of a mining region.

Likewise, a sustainability label may provide useful information, but it does not automatically make a product more ethical, more environmentally responsible or more socially beneficial.

The challenge for the industry is therefore to distinguish between genuine solutions and systems that simply create another layer of administration.

Consumers deserve transparency. Mining communities deserve responsible treatment. Manufacturers and retailers need reliable information. And legitimate businesses should be able to demonstrate where their products come from.

But these objectives need practical systems that work across the entire supply chain.

The experience of SCS-007 is a reminder that good intentions are not enough. A system must be commercially viable, widely adopted, independently verifiable and capable of addressing the real problem it was created to solve.

In the diamond trade, sometimes the most important question is not “What new certification can we create?”

It is:

“What problem are we actually trying to solve, and will this system genuinely solve it?”