CIBJO releases the fifth special report 2024
Eye on challenges of ethical coloured stone supply chains With fewer than seven weeks to go to the opening of the 2024 CIBJO Congress in Shanghai, China, on November 2, 2024, the fifth of the pre-congress Special Reports has been released. Prepared by the CIBJO Coloured Stone Commission, headed by Charles Abouchar, the report examines the challenges faced by members of the coloured gemstone sector in ensuring ethical provenance in their supply chains, where materials are most often artisanally mined and handled by multiple traders. In an industry where a supply chain typically traverses multiple borders, social and environmental laws and regulations are unevenly created and enforced in different countries, with standards tending to be more lax in some of the nations where products are sourced and manufactured, the Coloured Stone Commission President wrote. “We fully support the idea of working in the direction of progress,” Abouchar continued. “But properly verifying the p