Rio Tinto’s Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories to be the recipients of this year’s Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) Excellence Awards.

The TSM Excellence Awards were introduced in 2014 and comprise two categories: the TSM Environmental Excellence Award and the TSM Community Engagement Excellence Award. For mining companies to qualify for these awards, they must be actively applying TSM principles.

Natural Diamond Council, the authoritative resource on natural diamonds, has released its 2023 analytical report entitled, Diamond Facts: Addressing myths and misconceptions about the diamond industry. Through this report, the Natural Diamond Council (NDC) set out to address misinformation about both natural diamonds and laboratory-grown diamonds for industry players, retailers, and consumers alike.

Cartier, delegated by Richemont, and Kering launched the Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030 driven by a common conviction that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and aspirations for a sustainable industry can only be achieved through collaborative initiatives. The global initiative is open to all watch and jewellery players with a national or international footprint. It is committed to a common core of key sustainability goals in three areas: building climate resilience, preserving resources, and fostering inclusiveness.

Dholakia Foundation, philanthropic arm of Hari Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd., has been granted special accreditation to participate in the UN World Water Conference 2023. To discuss further how to achieve SDG objectives and to honor current players who have contributed with notable efforts to such goals, the organization organized a gala dinner this weekend in New York.

Homestead Diamonds has recovered a rare 13-carat pink diamond from its bulk sampling operation on the Samada kimberlite pipe in the Free state province of South Africa. The 13.33-carat Pink is a Type IIa diamond and is one of several exceptional fancy colour stones recovered since the commencement of the bulk sampling programme in 2020.

The RJC has announced the appointment of writer and journalist Melanie Grant as the new executive Director of the organization. After several changes in the 2022 fiscal year, Grant’s appointment to the position represents the 3rd of such occurrences in under 12 months.

The “Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030”, initiated last year by Cartier (Richemont) and conglomerate Kering, has appointed Belgian Iris Van der Veken, former Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), as Executive Director and Secretary General. Van der Veken’s task will be to set up a governance structure that can help the initiative to reach its goals, enabling participating brands and companies to achieve commitments regarding climate, diversity, health and safety, labor conditions etc.

During a kickoff meeting that took place in Kananga, in the DRC’s Kasai region last week, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), together with the DRC’s Ministry of Mining and its subdivisions SAEMAPE and CEEC, NGO DDI@RESOLVE and tech company Everledger initiated OrigemA, a pilot project that aims to set up a fully transparent, digitally enabled mine-to-market program for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) cooperatives in the DRC.