Pope Francis blessed the lab-created diamond during a Thanksgiving ceremony in Rome to symbolize the need to promote sustainable jewelry manufacturing processes.
Taking into account the Pope’s position regarding the destructive and harmful effects of traditional mining methods, the American Diamond Foundry presented the laboratory-created stone during the rites of blessing, saying that it “represents a fundamental shift in the way this mineral is produced.”
“His Holiness Pope Francis is one of the preeminent moral authorities of our time,” said Martin Roschaizen, CEO of Diamond Foundry.
“We are honored to showcase a sustainably crafted diamond that completely eliminates the environmental and human losses of mining – hopefully a brilliant example of some sort of paradigm shift, at least for some mineral resources.”
The pope, at a meeting in the Vatican earlier this year, openly criticized traditional mining methods that do more harm than good as “the resources of the earth are plundered through short-sighted approaches.”
Diamond Foundry claims to produce lab-created diamonds at a zero-emission hydroelectric power plant in Washington, USA, using a patented plasma reactor technology that “turns greenhouse gases into pure diamonds.”
However, some industry experts have questioned some of the company’s manufacturers’ claims of being “green”.