De Beers sees natural diamond demand recovering amid lab-grown pressure: As reported by the Financial Times, De Beers chief executive Al Cook says consumers are increasingly favouring what they see as real and natural over synthetic alternatives, from food to art and personal relationships. He argues the company can tap that trend to support a recovery in demand for natural diamonds. Cook says the industry is benefiting from a backlash against artificial products as enthusiasm fades in some adjacent categories. The article points to weaker spending on meat alternatives in the U.S. and a sharp drop in NFT art trading volumes from their earlier peak, trends that De Beers believes reinforce its positioning of natural gems as scarce, physical luxury goods.

Botswana says natural diamond recovery need a stable De Beers: Botswana vice president Ndaba Gaolathe says the recovery of the natural diamond market depends to a large extent on a stable relationship between his country and De Beers, in which it currently holds a 15% stake. He also said uncertainty over the partnership between his government and the diamond miner helped give lab growns an opening. Speaking at Chatham House, the London-based international affairs think tank, on September 17, Gaolathe said Botswana and De Beers had historically acted together during diamond downturns, including by stockpiling rough diamonds and investing in category marketing. 

Diamond prices fall to lowest levels this two decades as lab-grown stones reshape market: Natural diamond prices have fallen to levels not seen in more than two decades, with wholesale prices now around 30-40 per cent below their 2021 peaks. The decline comes as the diamond industry faces weaker demand, excess supply and growing competition from lab-grown stones. Retail prices for a mainstream 1-carat natural round diamond currently range between $3,530 and $3,860.

WFDB Chief Mehul Shah calls for global natural diamond mark at HK Show: Shah said the industry should create a symbol similar to the Woolmark, allowing consumers to instantly identify genuine natural diamonds and understand their authenticity, origin and quality. “Just as Woolmark became the trusted symbol for pure wool, natural diamonds deserve a globally registered mark. Every genuine natural diamond should carry the right to use this mark,” Shah said. He also raised concerns over differences between laboratory grading systems, which, he said, can create confusion among consumers.

De Beers sale nears deadline: The government is nearing the end of its review of Anglo American’s proposed sale of its 85 percent De Beers stake. Due diligence is expected to conclude by the end of September, according to people familiar with the process and public statements by officials. Botswana must then decide whether to join the preferred bidder, exercise its pre-emption rights and buy Anglo American’s stake, or pursue another ownership structure. The transaction could close in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Who should fund the future of natural diamonds?: The real question is not whether an industry generating 70 USD billion in annual retail sales can raise 500 million USD a year for its future. The amount is not the problem. It is financial architecture and collective responsibility — transforming an industry in which everyone benefits from demand into one in which everyone accepts responsibility for creating it. Solve that, and 500 million USD stops looking like an impossible number. It becomes a design problem. The precise number can be debated. The scale of investment cannot. With laboratory-grown diamonds reshaping the market, the risk is no longer simply losing market share. Without a new financing system, natural diamonds risk becoming marginal far sooner than many imagine. 

Consumers care about the origin of many products. Why not diamonds?: In this Long Read, former De Beers executive Nicholas Moltke, the founder and CEO of Botswanamark, writes about the problems in not only verifying a diamond’s origin, but selling tracked-and-traced diamonds over the counter. This essay is timed for the celebrations of Botswana’s Diamond Jubilee, as well as Climate Week NYC.

Why liquid diamond buy-backs matter more than ever today: In Asia, there is a culture of buying and holding fine jewellery as a store of value, especially in the case of higher-karatage gold pieces. However, in major Western markets like the US this is much less common. With diamond jewellery in particular, the lack of fungibility makes the business of “cash-for-diamonds” inherently difficult, i.e., businesses have to deal with analysing and pricing potentially thousands of categories of diamonds whereas with gold there is a single market. That said, in a business that is founded on the premise of merchandising valuable possessions, it would behoove the diamond and larger jewellery industry to provide consumers with sufficient liquidity for these assets.