This marks a big step for the world’s biggest jeweller.

Today, Pandora has announced that they will only be selling laboratory-made diamonds moving forward.

This marks a significant shift from mined diamonds in both their stores and products.

There has long been concern about the ethics behind mining diamonds, namely the environments in which they’re made and the way diamond miners are treated.

Pandora’s chief executive, Alexander Lacik, said to the BBC: “It’s the right thing to do. We can essentially create the same outcome as nature has created, but at a very, very different price.”

Lab diamonds can cost as little as ‘a third of what it is for something that we’ve dug up from the ground’, Lacik shares, and are believed to be more sustainable and ethical, too.

This comes as a part of Pandora’s company-wide sustainability push.

Ethical jewellery and even ethical engagement rings have been rising in popularity for years now, but the world’s biggest jewellers choosing only to opt for lab-grown moving forwards is a big step.

The lab-made diamonds will be manufactured here in the UK, and will also be the first place where they retail, too.

You’ll be able to get your hands on the new diamonds from £250, and Pandora execs reckon the brand will sell more diamonds than they’re used too thanks to the new, more affordable price.

“Pandora jewellery today is much more of an everyday type of jewellery, even though a large proportion of it is gifted. The way the diamond industry has kind of been created to a large degree has been very much about gifting, and in particular around when people get engaged or married,” he said.

“We’re trying to open up this playing field and say, you know, with the type of value equation that we offer, you can use this everyday if you want.”

“What might very well happen is actually that the total demand for diamonds is going to increase. So it may actually not be a question of, we steal somebody else’s lunch”.

The post Pandora is to sell exclusively laboratory-made diamonds, making a move away from mined appeared first on Marie Claire.