CaratSCS retires SCS-007, the gemstone standard no miner adopted
The scheme covered natural and laboratory-grown diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires, and ended on 1 September. Companies already certified may use their certificates until expiry, but SCS will no longer audit or maintain the standard.
The standard is gone. SCS Standards retired SCS-007, its gemstone standard, on 1 September 2026. It covered 4 stone types: natural and lab-grown diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
If you sell on a sustainability certificate: audits stopped on 1 September. Your certificate runs to its expiry date and nothing replaces it.
If you buy laboratory-grown from certified factories: no third party audits them to this standard now.
What this is not: a finding about any factory. The standard ended for want of buyers, not for failures found.
| Element | Status from 1 September 2026 | Named by |
|---|---|---|
| Natural and laboratory-grown diamonds | standard retired | SCS Standards |
| Emeralds, rubies and sapphires | standard retired | SCS Standards |
| Audits against SCS-007 | no longer performed | SCS Global Services |
| Maintenance of the standard | discontinued | SCS Standards |
| Certificates already issued | valid to their expiry date | SCS Global Services |
| The chain-of-custody framework | offered to other schemes | SCS Standards |
IThe mining sector never signed on
Miners stayed out. SCS says miners did not take the certificate up. It also says no clear rule covers chain-of-custody claims on a single stone.
Scale never came. The notice says the market never came to support a voluntary standard at scale. Its scope ran to 4 stone types.
IILab-grown carried it, then faded
Only growers joined. JCK reports that only lab-grown firms took an interest. That faded as synthetic prices fell.
Cost decided it. Allison Charalambous of Brilliant Earth called it “cost-prohibitive, particularly for the growers, cutters, and polishers”. The cost was origin fingerprinting.
IIICertificates stay valid until expiry
Nothing is revoked. Firms already certified may keep their certificates to the expiry date.
The colour pivot failed too. SCS began the standard in 2019 and added coloured stones in 2024, JCK reports. Few took that up.
01What would change this call+
An existing scheme adopting the SCS-007 chain-of-custody framework. SCS says it is open to that, which would put the same audit trail back in the market under another name.
02What a product-level sustainability certificate is+
A product-level certificate follows one stone rather than one company. An auditor checks each holder in the chain, from producer to polisher to retailer, and issues a claim attached to the goods themselves. That is more expensive than a company-level membership scheme, because the cost falls on every step and the stone must be identifiable at each one. SCS-007 used origin fingerprinting to do that identification, which is the cost Brilliant Earth names.
03Method · the desk’s arithmetic+
Both SCS notices were read directly on 19 September 2026 and each carries the same sentence retiring the scheme effective 1 September 2026. The SCS Standards page is the source for the scope, which names natural and laboratory-grown diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires; the count of four stone types is Carat Capital's and is labelled as such. The 2019 start, the 2024 coloured-stone programme, the Lab Grown Diamond Council origin and the Brilliant Earth quotation are JCK's reporting of 18 September 2026, attributed in the text rather than folded into the primary. The desk is gemstones because the retired scheme's own title is Sustainably Produced Gemstones and its scope statement names emeralds, rubies and sapphires alongside diamonds; the story is tagged to diamonds as well. ARCHIVE: SCS Global Services and SCS-007 - ours: no prior period, zero hits across the 394-article archive for SCS and for SCS-007, each searched separately; new item covers the retirement effective 1 September 2026, announced by 18 September. NO PRIOR PERIOD, so NEW.
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