There's a version of this conversation that happens every June — polished statements about sustainability commitments, carefully worded paragraphs about responsible sourcing, and a general sense that everything is broadly on track. Richa Singh, Managing Director of the Natural Diamond Council, is not interested in that version.

When she talks about the diamond industry's environmental record, she leads with data, calls out greenwashing by name, and is willing to say, plainly, where the work is unfinished. In an industry not always known for that kind of candour, it's worth paying attention to.

A Mine Is Not a Project. It's a Starting Point
The conversation opens with what is perhaps the oldest criticism of extractive industries: what happens to the community when the resource runs out? 

Singh pushes back on the framing itself. "We don't look at a mine as a project with an expiration date — we look at it as a launchpad for a community's future." The measure of success, she argues, is structural resilience — whether the systems built around a mine can stand on their own once operations wind down.
Botswana is her anchor example. Diamond revenues there are woven directly into national infrastructure, funding healthcare and education that will outlive the mines by generations. Beyond that, she says, fully funded and legally binding environmental rehabilitation plans are locked in before the first stone is ever recovered — and the whole process is verified by independent third-party audits through frameworks like the Responsible Jewellery Council.

It's a strong claim. The verification layer matters because without it, it's just a promise.

Beyond Conflict-Free: Where Traceability Actually Stands
The Kimberley Process was the industry's first serious attempt at accountability — a mechanism to keep conflict diamonds out of the supply chain. But today's consumer wants to know considerably more than whether their stone funded a war. Singh acknowledges the gap. "Today's consumers want to go beyond a conflict-free guarantee — they want to know the specific story of their stone."

On the progress side, she points to technology. Paper certificates have given way to secure digital records. Platforms like De Beers' Tracr and Sarine's mapping systems have made major supply chains traceable from mine to retail counter. That's real movement.

Where it falls short, she says honestly, is with smaller, independent players. Large manufacturing houses can adopt tracking technology relatively quickly. For smaller businesses, the cost and complexity remain genuine barriers — and the industry is still working out how to close that gap.

Biodiversity: From Cleanup Job to Blueprint
Two decades ago, environmental management in mining largely meant cleaning up after yourself. Singh says the thinking has fundamentally shifted. "The biggest change over the last twenty years is that we've stopped viewing environmental care as just a cleanup job at the end of a mine's life. Today, biodiversity management is built right into the blueprint before we even touch the ground."

NDC members actively protect 2,020 square kilometres of natural land globally — close to four times the land used for diamond recovery, or roughly the area of the entire city of Delhi. Companies like Rosy Blue have committed to science-based targets, aiming for a 54.6% reduction in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2033. KP Sanghvi powers a third of its operations through renewable energy, conserves over 250 million litres of water annually, and runs LEED Platinum-certified zero-waste manufacturing facilities.
The numbers are specific. That specificity is, itself, part of the point.

Net Zero: Who Is Actually Doing the Work?
There's a version of net zero that lives entirely in a PowerPoint presentation. Singh has little patience for it.
"There is a big difference between making a promise and doing the hard work."

Her example is Shree Ramkrishna Exports — a company that didn't wait for a target date. They transformed their main facilities and achieved certified Net Zero status. Then they went further: their process now produces carbon-negative natural polished diamonds, meaning the operation removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it creates. Solar plants power facilities on 100% renewable energy. Green buildings rank among the most efficient globally. "We are proving that cutting emissions is an active reality on our factory floors today," she says.

Scope 3: The Number Nobody Has Quite Cracked Yet
If there's one area where Singh doesn't reach for a reassuring answer, it's Scope 3 — the indirect emissions that sit across the entire supply chain, from third-party shipping to business travel. "Scope 3 is the toughest nut to crack for any global industry, including ours."

The industry is building towards standardised measurement through frameworks like CIBJO's 2025 ESG Guidelines. But full consistency across all suppliers and mining operations isn't there yet. She says so directly: "We aren't completely flawless, but the foundation is being built." In a sea of industries that tend to paper over this particular gap, the admission is notable.

The Lab-Grown Question
Few topics in jewellery right now generate more heat than the comparison between natural and lab-grown diamonds. Singh says she welcomes the conversation — as long as it's grounded in facts rather than marketing.
The distinction she draws is about energy. A natural diamond is formed over billions of years. A lab-grown diamond is manufactured in weeks, in a factory, using continuous, high-heat reactors that draw heavily from the grid. The environmental trade-off, she argues, depends entirely on where that electricity comes from.
"Consumers today are incredibly smart — they want real provenance and transparency. By focusing on facts, we can let consumers make an informed choice based on what values matter most to them."

It's a measured answer. Whether it fully satisfies critics of the natural diamond industry's environmental record is another matter — but the framing is more honest than the usual talking points on either side.

The Water Story Nobody Is Telling
Water risk in diamond mining looks completely different depending on where you are. In Canada, the challenge is one thing. In Botswana, another. In India's manufacturing hubs, it's something else entirely.

Singh says 84% of the water used across global diamond recovery is now fully recycled — and that in water-stressed environments like India, the standard has moved well beyond closed-loop recycling inside factories.
Hari Krishna Exports, through their Mission River initiative, has restored over 160 water bodies. The stored capacity now sits at at least 20 billion litres, turning drought-prone farmland into functioning ecosystems supporting over 250,000 local farmers. Shree Ramkrishna Exports has built check dams and canals across more than 100 villages, controlling water flow during monsoons and guaranteeing year-round access to communities that previously watched their wells run dry. These are not pilot programmes. They are operational reality.

When Community Investment Lasts — and When It Doesn't
Mining-led schools and hospitals have a mixed record. Some thrive for decades after a mine closes. Others fall apart within a few years of the last truck leaving. Singh is clear about what separates the two. "The separator is whether an investment is built to survive independently of the mine from day one."

Up to 80% of a rough diamond's value, she says, stays within local and indigenous communities through employment, local purchasing, and infrastructure — when the model is designed that way. The programmes that endure are the ones co-designed with local governments and community leaders, not delivered to them.
She points to foundations funded by manufacturers like the Parikh Foundation by Diarough, medical centres backed by SRK and Venus Jewel, and educational and healthcare programmes run by Dimexon. These aren't charitable gestures bolted onto a business model. They're built into how these companies operate — which is why they're still running.

What Genuine Accountability Actually Looks Like
ESG reporting across the industry has grown considerably more sophisticated. But Singh draws a sharp line between reporting that satisfies auditors and reporting that actually means something to the people it's supposed to serve. "Communities don't care about a company's massive budget sheets — they care about real-life outcomes."

The metrics that matter, she says, are things like local literacy rates, infant mortality improvements, and long-term employment for young people. Not carbon accounting that looks good in an annual report and obscures more than it reveals.

On World Environment Day: Honesty Over Performance
She saves her sharpest words for last. For too long, she says, World Environment Day has functioned as a communications exercise for large industries — a moment to publish the right statements, put out the right images, and move on. She wants no part of that. "Environment Day needs to be the day we are completely honest about our operations — including the hard targets we haven't fully hit yet."

The greenwashing she's most concerned about isn't coming from outside the industry. It's coming from within — vague, unsubstantiated claims like "eco-friendly" or "carbon-neutral" that float through the jewellery narrative without anything behind them. 

"If you aren't leading with verifiable facts today, it is just a script." On a day when most industries will be publishing their greenest selves, it's a harder line to take. But then, that's rather the point.

Richa Singh is Managing Director of the Natural Diamond Council