Shining reputation

Buying jewellery is no longer as simple as trotting down to your local Charles Greig and shelling out for something fancy enough to guarantee a warm reception in the boudoir. Nowadays it comes with an ethical checklist, to ensure that the rock in question wasn’t mined by a child slave, wouldn’t swell the coffers of a military junta or line the pockets of some whack job who has decided for no apparent reason to bomb the people of Ukraine back into the Stone Age.

Sticking Alrosa, the Russian company responsible for 28% of global diamond supply, on the sanctions list may be a start, but it doesn’t address the issue of Russian stones shipped off to India for cutting. This is all good news for Gemfields, which refers to itself as the world’s leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones. The company has bounced back well from the challenges of Covid, restarting mining without any major issues after almost a year shut down, and ramping up quickly to excellent production levels.

Gemfields says the market for coloured gemstones is buoyant, and it is well positioned to benefit from the step change it saw last year in demand and prices. It is seeing jewellers and downstream customers alike paying increased attention to the integrity of the supply chain, and it is supporting a shift towards “mine of origin” rather than “country of origin” certification. Its jewellery brand Fabergé might have suffered from its historical association with Russia, but that came to an abrupt halt when the Bolsheviks nationalised the company and shot most of its clients in 1918.