CIBJO’s Blue List Aims to Set Standards for Ethical Lingo

By Rob Bates | July 01, 2025

There is a pressing need in the industry for clarity regarding terms related to social and environmental responsibility, panelists said during a seminar on “What Does It Mean to Be Ethical? Have Your Say” at the recent JCK Las Vegas show.

All the panelists were involved in developing the new CIBJO Blue List, which is meant to provide the industry with guidelines for how it communicates to consumers about sustainability and related issues.

“We wanted to set up a committee to define the terminology used by our industry, so we can bring to the consumer the best possible meaning of the concepts we talk about,” said Gaetano Cavalieri, president of CIBJO (World Jewellery Confederation). “Sometimes in different parts of the world, and even in the same country, we talk the same language and don’t understand each other.”

CIBJO’s project will provide “a list of terminology, like a dictionary,” Cavalieri said. “It will be something that everybody may clearly and simply understand.”

Feriel Zerouki, president of the World Diamond Council and chief trade and industry officer for De Beers, said the initial draft of the Blue List was five years in the making.

“It became a mini research project,” she explained. “We said, ‘Let’s do a data scrape on how people are communicating with the consumer.’ If we in the trade aren’t using the same nomenclature, can you imagine what it must be like for the consumer? We were all using these words interchangeably: responsibly sourced, responsible, sustainable, etc. It was just super-confusing.”

The CIBJO team consulted various dictionaries, legal papers, international and industry standards, and experts in different sectors. It plans to test the terminology with consumer focus groups.

Discussions among the 12-person Blue List committee occasionally got contentious, said Purvi Shah, head of ethical and sustainable value chains for De Beers.

“There were many hours of debate on various terms,” Shah said. “But this was one of the most dedicated committees I’ve ever seen.”

The final document “tried not to be prescriptive,” she said.

“We didn’t want to stifle innovation and we don’t want people to just go down one specific route,” added Shah.

Sara Yood, president and CEO of the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, noted that some of the existing standards out there, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) “Green Guides,” cover more than jewelry.

“They are not particularly well-tailored for what we do in this industry,” she said.

CIBJO’s new standards should help if the FTC goes ahead with its planned Green Guides revision, said Ronnie VanderLinden, president of the International Diamond Manufacturers Association.

“Now we’re able to internationally and domestically say to the FTC, ‘Here’s a helpful handbook,’” VanderLinden said. “So they understand the language that we speak as an industry.”

However, Shah cautioned that following the Blue List doesn’t guarantee a jeweler would be in compliance with local laws. But the Blue List does incorporate the basic framework of most national laws, which say that any claims must be substantiated.

“In this regulatory environment, it’s going to get quite serious,” Shah said. “In the U.K., you can now receive financial penalties if you are greenwashing.”

The Blue List is now open for public consultation, and Shah said some “rich and insightful” comments have already been submitted to the committee.

“We’ve received feedback from across Asia, Europe, and the United States,” she said. “Of course, there have been people who disagreed with us, which has been really interesting and is going to make the next few months for us interesting as we unpack that.”

The panel was moderated by the author of the article.

Top, from left: Ronnie VanderLinden, Feriel Zerouki, Sara Yood, Gaetano Cavalieri, Purvi Shah (photo courtesy of CIBJO)