GIA discontinues 4Cs certification for lab-grown diamonds

The world’s foremost authority on gemology and the world diamond certification body The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has said it will discontinue giving certificates to consumers for lab-grown diamond (LGD) jewellery as they have decided to do away with the classification of LGDs based on colour, clarity, cut and carat weight – popularly known as 4Cs in the diamond trade parlance.

However, the institute will continue to accept laboratory-grown diamonds for evaluation and identification.

Pritesh Patel, chief operating officer of GIA, said that they will not issue any certificate to the buyers of LGD jewellery anymore. “We provide that 4C certificate for natural diamond jewellery, but we will not extend that certification to LGDs.”

GIA has offices in Mumbai and Surat – the trading and cutting, and polishing hub for diamonds, respectively.

GIA invented the famous 4Cs of colour, clarity, cut and carat weight and in 1953 created the International Diamond Grading System, which is recognised around the world as the standard for diamond quality.

Confirming the development, Vishwanath G, chairman of South India-based Wondr Diamonds, which sells both natural and LGDs, said, “The GIA certification will continue for natural diamonds, but the institute will discontinue with certification for LGDs based on 4Cs. Now it will not issue that certificate.”

Apart from GIA, the International Gemological Institute (IGI) issues certification for both natural and lab-grown diamonds. However, IGI is yet to reveal its certification strategy for LGDs.

Earlier, GIA would issue a certificate for both natural and LGDs on the same parameters. “Only the certificates mentioned natural or lab-grown diamonds. Otherwise, the certificates would look similar,” said a Mumbai-based diamond retailer.

India produces 20 million carats of LGDs annually.

“Natural diamonds are rare, and it takes billions of years to form natural diamonds. The supply of the rock is limited. On the contrary, LGDs are man-made and can be produced at any time. Therefore, they are not comparable in any way. And consumers should not have any confusion about that,” said Susan Jacques, President & CEO of GIA.

More than 95 per cent of laboratory-grown diamonds entering the market fall into a very narrow range of colour and clarity. Because of that, it is no longer relevant for GIA to describe man-made diamonds using the nomenclature created for the continuum of colour and clarity of natural diamonds, Jacques said.

GIA will start using descriptive terms to characterise the quality of laboratory-grown diamonds and will no longer use the colour and clarity nomenclature that it developed for natural diamonds.

The revised GIA description system for laboratory-grown diamonds will confirm that the submitted item is a laboratory-grown diamond and whether it falls into one of two categories, ‘premium’ or ‘standard.’ The categories will be defined by a combination of metrics related to colour, clarity and finish. If the man-made diamond fails to achieve the minimum standard for quality, it will not receive a designation from GIA. Until the revised descriptive system for laboratory-grown diamonds is finalised, the current GIA services for laboratory-grown diamonds will continue to be available.

This change to how GIA describes the quality of laboratory-grown diamonds will help consumers understand the important differences in the two products’ origin, ensuring their confidence and enabling them to make informed and educated purchase decisions, Jacques added.