Mining, export, value chain
Diplo Commodities mines rough diamonds and gold on licensed African concessions, exports them under Kimberley Process certificates and stays with the stone through cutting, polishing and setting. One chain, one party answerable for it.
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01The chain
Most traders enter the chain at one point and leave it at the next. We stay in it from the gravel to the shop window, which is why we can say where a stone comes from and who touched it.
Work begins on licensed ground. The deposits we work are alluvial, which means the diamonds sit in river gravel rather than in a kimberlite pipe, and they are recovered with washing plants and sluices rather than with blasting.
Gravel is washed, sieved and hand sorted on site. Recovery is the stage where losses happen, so it stays under our own supervision rather than being handed to a subcontractor.
Every parcel is graded under a loupe before it leaves the country: size, shape, colour, clarity. Valuation at source is what keeps a producing country from being paid for sand.
Rough leaves under a Kimberley Process certificate. The certificate travels with the parcel and names origin, weight and value, and without it the parcel cannot legally cross a participant's border.
Cutting decides most of the value. A stone is measured, planned and only then cut, and for commissioned pieces the design is drawn before a single facet is put on.
The last stage happens at a bench, not in a spreadsheet. We work with goldsmiths who set our stones by hand, and the piece reaches the customer from that bench.
The chain in motion
Five films from the workshop and the loading bay. Access is by password, the same one that opens the collection.
Open the films02Our own operation
These are our benches and our pieces, photographed where the work happens rather than bought from a picture library.
03Password protected
Pictures from three places: the finished pieces, the bench they were made on, and the tables where they were shown.
Parcels graded and valued at source, exported under Kimberley Process certificate.
Cut and polished in cooperation with our partners, single stones and matched pairs.
Small calibrated goods for eternity rings, pavé work and restoration.
One stone, followed from the parcel to the finished piece, with the customer choosing at each step.
04Gold
We mine gold in powder and nugget form for export. Refining and bullion production happen with partners, because casting a bar that a bank will accept is a separate trade with its own standards.
The reference standard is the London Bullion Market Association's Good Delivery List. A Good Delivery gold bar has to reach a minimum fineness of 995.0 parts per thousand and hold between 350 and 430 fine troy ounces, and only refiners the LBMA has accredited may produce one. That is the gate between mined gold and gold a wealth manager can put in a vault, and it is why we work with refiners rather than around them.
05Responsibility
Alluvial mining happens in rivers and in villages, not on an industrial estate. That makes the surroundings part of the operation rather than something next to it.
Worked ground is refilled and the watercourse put back, because an open pit left in a riverbed is a hazard long after the gravel is gone.
Our sites sit next to settlements that were there first. Water use, access routes and working hours are agreed locally rather than announced.
Staff are trained on the rules that apply to them, in the language they work in, and the training is repeated rather than signed once.
Licences, export certificates and buyer records are kept because a chain that cannot be shown is not a chain, it is a claim.
06Background
The Kimberley Process began in May 2000, and in November 2002 the Certification Scheme was launched and signed by 37 countries. As of 1 January 2024 it had 59 participants representing 85 countries, with the European Union counting as one. The scheme's own figure is that participants prevent 99.8 per cent of the worldwide trade in conflict diamonds. It certifies rough only, so a certificate says where a parcel entered the legal trade, not where the finished ring on a shop counter was cut.
Diamond is the cubic form of carbon and, as a naturally occurring solid, a mineral from the element class. It is the hardest natural material known, with a hardness of 10 on the Mohs scale, which is why it is used for cutting and grinding tools as much as for jewellery. Hardness is not toughness: a diamond will scratch anything, and it will still cleave if it is struck along the wrong plane.
Beyond the Kimberley Process there is the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, third edition 2016. It sets out a five step framework for companies sourcing minerals, and unlike the Kimberley Process it covers the whole chain rather than the rough export alone. Anyone assessing a supplier in this trade will ask about it.
07Partners
Cutting, setting and retail happen with named partners rather than anonymous subcontractors.
The goldsmith on the Ruhr
A working bench, not a showroom with a catalogue. Pieces are drawn, built and set on site, which is where our stones go when a customer wants something made rather than bought.
Host of the Diamond Dinner Series
The room where the Diamond Dinner Series takes place. Small table, few guests, and the pieces on the table rather than behind glass.
08Events
Two occasions we run or support. Both have their own page, and the full picture series behind each one is reserved for guests and partners.
A diamond is usually sold across a counter under a spot lamp. The Diamond Dinner Series does the opposite: a long tabl
Open page
African fashion gets shown in Europe far more often than African materials get credited. We took part in the 2025 edit
Open pageContact
Write to us with what you are looking for, a parcel, a single stone, a commission or a supply relationship, and you will get an answer from a person.
The figures on this page are checkable. These are the places they come from.