SCS Global Services and its nonprofit arm, SCS Standards, have decided to stop gauging the sustainability of diamonds and gemstones.

The company said in a statement that it had “retired” SCS-007, its 7-year-old diamond and gemstone standard and program, on Sept. 1.

“Since [its] launch, the market conditions needed to support the voluntary standard at scale have not materialized,” the company said. “Certification was not adopted by the mining sector, and no clear regulatory path exists for product-level chain-of-custody claims across an increasingly fragmented supply chain.

“SCS Global Services will no longer audit to the standard, and SCS Standards will no longer maintain the standard,” it continued. However, “currently certified companies may continue to use their certification through its existing expiration date.”

It added: “SCS Standards is open to partnering with existing industry schemes that want to build on the rigorous chain-of-custody framework SCS-007 established.”

Jewelers such as Emily Chelsea Jewelry, who relied on the program, now say they no longer have a way to vouch for the environmental impact of their diamonds.

“We relied on this third-party certification to guarantee that the factories we were buying our lab-grown diamonds from were producing in a sustainable way,” Chelsea said in an Instagram post.

“I don’t know if I ever felt like they were ‘responsible,’ but I felt good at least about saying a third party was certifying the production of these diamonds, saying they were coming from factories that were at least using renewable energy and actively being challenged to reduce their carbon output.

“What are we doing now with lab-grown diamonds, being as popular as they are, but so is the demand for responsible sourcing?”

SCS first decided to develop diamond and gemstone standards in 2019, at the behest of the Lab Grown Diamond Council, a now-defunct group.

The San Francisco–based SCS originally wanted to issue “certified sustainable” certificates for both lab-grown and natural diamonds. However, the wording on the certificate soon changed to the clunkier “certified sustainably rated.” In addition, only lab-grown companies expressed interest in the program, with many mining companies saying they didn’t want natural and lab-grown stones to be judged by the same standard.

Even the interest from the lab-grown diamond sector began to fade with the ongoing fall of synthetic prices and related problems in that industry. (SCS’ first customer was Maryland-based grower WD Lab Grown, which now is also defunct.)

And while the company eventually lowered the price of its certifications, Allison Charalambous, vice president of responsible sourcing for Brilliant Earth, tells JCK that while her company used the program, she found it “cost-prohibitive, particularly for the growers, cutters, and polishers,” due to the need to get the diamonds’ origin “fingerprinted.”

“It was overly complicated, especially for lab, which is the most straightforward material we use,” she says.

SCS pivoted and announced it would issue certificates for colored stones in 2024, but that program never garnered widespread interest or adoption.

The program most recently was overseen by Katherine Weymouth, who joined the company from Brilliant Earth in 2023. Weymouth left SCS after the program was “retired.”