Aether Diamonds is the first and currently only diamond manufacturer that is a certified B Corp. What makes them so special? They turn air into diamonds and they do it using all clean energy sources. For every diamond carat they sell, they are committed to pulling 20 tonnes of carbon out of the air. Co-founder Ryan Shearman shares the journey, including navigating B Corp certification and the importance of sustainability in every field.
We begin by exploring the current state of the diamond industry and the environmental impact of traditional diamond mining. Ryan Shearman, the co-founder, highlights that where lab-grown diamonds are being produced, the power used in the production facilities is not sourced from clean energy. While some players in the industry use hydroelectric power, the feedstock for these facilities still comes from fossil fuel sources. This means that the carbon used to create lab-grown diamonds still contributes to carbon emissions and the climate crisis.
Then we dive into the concept of making diamonds from air. Ryan explains that the idea came about when her and his co-founder, both have backgrounds in jewelry and engineering, recognized the challenges in the broader jewelry market and wanted to tackle them in an impact-oriented way. Shearman mentions reading a book called Drawdown, which discusses various projects aimed at addressing the climate crisis. In the book, there was a mention of climeworks and their direct air capture facility in Switzerland, which fascinated him.
Ryan explains that direct air capture is a chemical process that removes CO2 from the air. They realized that if they could scale this process, it could play a significant role in fighting climate change. However, scaling direct air capture proved to be expensive and presented challenges in terms of what to do with the captured carbon. This is where diamonds come in. The co-founders had a phone call where one of them mentioned the idea of making diamonds from the carbon in the air, and both engineers were intrigued.
Ryan explains that geologically, natural diamond formation takes billions of years deep in the earth. However, in a laboratory, the process can be completed in just four to five weeks. The carbon captured from the air is used to create lab-grown diamonds, transforming carbon that warms the planet into carbon that warms the heart.
The other important note here, is that Ryan points out that other lab grown diamonds historically still rely heavily on fossil fuels, as they are using those petroleum based products to source their carbon for the diamonds. So even though other lab grown diamonds are mitigating some of the negative social impacts from traditionally mining diamonds, they are still having a negative impact on the environment.
Ryan concludes by expressing pride in what has been achieved so far in creating diamonds from air with Aether and acknowledges that this is just the beginning. He emphasizes the potential of lab-grown diamonds to address the ethical and environmental concerns associated with traditional diamond mining. By transforming the industry and investing in job training and infrastructure, lab-grown diamonds can ensure a sustainable future for both the environment and the communities affected by mining closures.
Draw Down: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming edited by Paul Hawken – Book linked to on Better World Books.
[00:00] Ryan Shearman Climate is not an industry, it’s a lens. And it’s going to impact every single industry on this planet. So whether you come from finance, whether you come from light or heavy manufacturing,
[00:15] Benn Marine you come from fashion, you name an industry, climate is going to impact it. From Dear Go Collective, this is Responsibly Different. Sharing stories of certified B corporations and our journey of joining them in leveraging business as a force for good. What if you could turn something destructive and harmful into something timeless and beautiful? Today’s guest turns the carbon in the air that is contributing to global warming into diamonds. Yes, you heard that right. They turn air into diamonds. Aether Diamonds is a certified B Corp that is creating lab grown diamonds by pulling carbon out of the air and utilizes clean energy sources in their production. Not only are they the first and currently only certified B Corp diamond manufacturer, they are also the first vegan certified diamond creator. March 28th, I sat down with Ryan Shearman, the co-founder of Aether Diamonds,
[01:28] Ryan Shearman and he shared with us how turning air into diamonds went from a dream in a sketch pad to a reality. I know you were named one of 40 social entrepreneurs to watch in 2021 by Cause Artist. I’m curious, what got you into the social enterprise space and how did that start for you? It goes back to 2017. I had organized a charity motorcycle event to raise funds for disaster relief following hurricanes that hit the American Southeast and the islands. And I’ll never forget, it was at the end of the night we were giving away some prizes and we finally had our tally for how much funds we had raised. And I got to share that with all of the attendees. And as I was stepping down off this makeshift stage, if you will, it was really just a picnic table. But as I was stepping down, I remember feeling a level of fulfillment. We were doing something good after we had ended up selling that business. That was the emotion that I was most drawn to. I knew that when I wanted to start my next company, I wanted it to be impact oriented. I wasn’t sure what form that would take, whether it be environmental or social or something in between. And ultimately, I do think we probably skew a little bit more environmental, but there’s a big social component to what we’re doing here at Aether.
[02:43] Benn Marine So I think we’ve certainly directionally gone where I wanted to go and more. That’s amazing. That’s awesome. I mean, I imagine Aether is probably one of your favorites, but I’m just curious, like, what are some of the favorite projects that you’ve kind of stuck your toe in?
[02:59] Ryan Shearman Well, I mean, the last couple of years we’ve been building this company and I’ve been exposed to a lot. Mostly climate oriented companies. They’re, whether we’re talking about Nori or Project Vesta or Pachama, all companies that are really doing some fantastic work to really either directly impact the amount of carbon we’re pulling down from our atmosphere to create new infrastructure, new tools that other people who want to get involved in climate can do. I think that’s something that’s really interesting. Recently, I learned of a company called Carbon for Good. They’re working with farmers, sustenance farmers in parts of Africa to help them build the general farming practices into their normal workflow so that they can pull carbon out of the atmosphere and sink it into the soil and root structures of the things that they’re planting and ultimately use that as an opportunity for income in parts of Africa that would otherwise maybe skew in favor of lifetime mining, for instance. So when you look at any kind of mining operations or finite business operations, you can only operate a diamond mine for so long as the kimberlite deposit underground is somewhat accessible. Eventually those mines close and what happens to the millions of people in these areas in Africa who are reliant on those industries. So this company is actually one I’m interested in learning more about, frankly, but from what I understand about their mission, really exciting stuff that they’re doing.
[04:22] Benn Marine And speaking of diamond mining, I know so much of ether and we’ll get more into this as we kind of move along here, but it is environmentally focused, but it does also have a huge social impact just because of how harmful traditional diamond mining is. Can you speak a little bit to that for folks that maybe aren’t aware?
[04:42] Ryan Shearman Yeah, I mean, the history of the diamond industry as it pertains to human rights concerns, human rights abuses, I think that’s pretty well known at this point. And it wasn’t always. I remember when I first started in jewelry, having an internal conflict myself as to the products I was developing and the materials and stones that were being used in them and where they came from. The industry has certainly done a good job at trying to clean some of that up. Some of it still persists even today. We’re not at a point where we can assure that 100% of all diamonds from the ground are being responsibly sourced and they’re not being done in a way that takes advantage of workers. Some of the folks engaged in the diamond production extraction side of this industry in Africa may be working for literally dollars a day. And now look at what’s happening with Russia. Alrosa is one of the largest diamond producers in the world. They are in part state owned and any diamond that’s being pulled out of the ground in Russia and sold into the open market, now there’s some sanctions in place, fortunately, but those are in part directly funding the Russian government and therefore funding the conflict in Ukraine. Those are conflict diamonds by definition. We can kind of sidestep all of that. Lab-grown diamonds in general would have stepped in the right direction for a few reasons, but one namely they avoid any of those challenges. However, they bring a challenge in and of themselves. As this entire industry continues to adopt lab-grown diamonds in greater and greater ways, I think the challenge is then what happens to those folks who, if that accelerates the time frame for when mines close, what’s going to happen to the people who are on the ground, who are doing that work? We need to, as an industry, rally and bring job training in and make sure that there’s infrastructure in place to allow these people to continue to have a livelihood after diamond mining goes away. In our lifetime, over the course of the next 18 years, by 2040, 70 percent of all mines operating on planet Earth, diamond mines specifically, will be closed. When you open a new diamond mine, you’ve done your geological surveys, you know how much material is underground. You know, hey, this is a 20-year mine, this is a 30-year mine, a 50-year mine. We know that 50 percent of the world’s production of diamonds comparable to the 2017 peak that we had hit, half of that’s going to go away by 2040. If half of the world’s production of diamonds from the ground goes away and there’s mining closures, that’s going to have a real impact on real people in this world. I think the lab-grown sector, this segment of the broader diamond trade, if we can come in and also hit that problem on the head and say, hey, what can we do to help work with organizations that have boots on the ground to establish job training programs or do this or do that? All of that’s really interesting. For us, we can pull carbon out of the air to make diamonds from anywhere in the world. What’s to stop us from building a facility in one of these regions at some point in time and continuing to have a talent base that understands the trade? Continue to work there because the amount of carbon in our air is not going to go away in 10 years, in 20 years. We don’t have that same finite supply that we’re dealing with. If we could get to a point where we were pulling such a massive amount of carbon out of the air that we were running into a supply issue, then lots of other problems would have been solved. So for us, getting in at the ground level, like I said before, and working with these organizations is going to be really important for us as we continue to scale. And hopefully, that’s something that this industry embraces moving forward.
[08:17] Benn Marine That’s awesome. So it sounds like, is that something that you all are exploring right now, is potentially doing that in some locations? Without giving too much detail, I mean, building a network of locations where we can capture carbon is a part of our plan. The where and how and the when specifically are all things that we’re kind of working through and will continue to work through over time. That makes sense. Speaking of lab-grown diamonds, though, my understanding is that the way, the traditional way that lab-grown diamonds are done is still not great for the environment because of the fossil fuel use. Is that right? Like you speak a little bit to that?
[08:53] Ryan Shearman Yeah. So fossil fuels, you know, kind of rear their ugly head in a number of different ways. If we’re talking about the lab-grown segment comparable to the established diamond mining segment of the industry, they were always going to be a step in the right direction. When we look at how lab-grown are positioned against mined diamonds, emphatically, just because there’s no human rights concerns, there’s a positive benefit to going in that direction. That said, the carbon that makes up those diamonds has to come from somewhere. Today, regular lab-grown diamond producers are sourcing that carbon from the fossil fuel industry. It’s coming from either fracking or through the crude oil refinement process. The raw ingredient is CH4 or graphite. Regardless, it gets extracted from the ground in harmful ways. So how can you stand out there in the public and pound on your chest and say, hey, we are the more sustainable option if you are still inherently supporting an industry that is continuing to harm our planet? Second to that, you have power consumption. Growing diamonds in a laboratory is power intense. And generally speaking, most lab-grown diamonds are coming out of other parts of the world, not the United States. This is not, you know, kind of home base for lab-grown diamond production. There are a few larger growers here in the United States. We have a great partner here that we work with. And when you look at international footprints in China, in India, in Russia, where, you know, lab-grown diamonds are being produced, the power that’s used is not coming from clean power sources. It’s not like you’ve got solar farms and wind farms that are powering these production facilities. There are some players in the industry that are using, say, hydroelectric, which is great, right? There’s a step in the right direction. But at the same time, that feedstock that they’re using is still coming from fossil fuel sources. That fossil carbon makes up every atom of carbon in those diamonds. So you’re still at face value running up against the problem.
[10:43] Benn Marine And that’s one of the things that we sought out to solve when we found a few. So tell me, how did, I mean, I feel like, so you all literally make diamonds out of air. I mean, it feels almost like water into wine, right? I’m so curious. Where did the idea come from? How did you all come to be?
[11:01] Ryan Shearman So, you know, I cut my teeth in jewelry going back a little over a decade now. That’s where I met my co-founder, Dan. In 2018, I think I posted something on Facebook about an idea that I had. And he calls me up and we get to chatting. We had recognized that there were some challenges in the broader jewelry market, things that we might be able to tackle. And again, I knew I wanted to do something that was impact oriented. I was reading a book called Drawdown. Actually, I keep this next to my desk. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Drawdown, but it’s an anthology. It really breaks down all of these different projects that humanity has undertaken to address the climate crisis, whether these are natural solutions or engineered solutions. And at the back of the book, there’s a section about things that are coming soon. And it teased out a little bit of information around Climb Works and their direct air capture facility that they were at the time building in Hinville, Switzerland. I was fascinated. I’m an engineer. I’m a materials guy. And I said, you know, we have a chemical way of removing CO2 from the air. Now we just need to scale that. And that can play a big role in our fight against climate change, against global warming. This is a massive tool in our tool belt, you know, at a planetary scale. Turns out scaling that is easier said than done. It’s expensive. What do you do with carbon once you’ve pulled it out of the air? Can you pump it underground into basaltic rock formations and hope it just mineralizes? Sure. But that has its own costs. And all of a sudden, the unit economics come into play and it just doesn’t really scale. And that’s where we view diamonds as this unlock. I was talking to Dan on a phone call. You know, it was telling him about direct air capture. We were talking about air quality in Bangkok, where he was living at the time. And I think it almost just kind of slipped out. It was like, what if we could make diamonds from the carbon in the air? And we’re both engineers and we’re both like, hmm, well. And that was it. That was the end of the phone call. I think it was like a week later, maybe five days later, you know, we get on the phone call and Dan says, I can’t stop thinking about making diamonds from air. And I said, neither can I. Here’s an entire notebook page of, you know, ideas I’m having around the chemistry and, you know, ultimately what we ended up putting forth and the way we’re making diamonds from air is remarkably similar to, you know, that initial kind of quick notebook sketch, which is really exciting to see that we were pretty close to the mark out of the gate. But, you know, that was three years ago. So it took us some time to really take what was an idea on paper and turn it into a reality. There have been some pretty material changes along the way, but here we are. And we are, in fact, you know, making diamonds out of thin air. Every carbon atom that makes up those diamonds was previously and recently warming the planet. So, you know, this is, as I like to say, we take carbon that warms the planet and we’re transforming it into carbon that warms the heart. And we’re pretty proud of what we’ve been able to achieve so far. And this is just the beginning.
[13:40] Benn Marine Oh my gosh. I love that. And you all should frame that sketch. I feel like. It’ll go in the vault someday. It’s worth its weight in diamonds, right? That’s amazing. So I’m curious. So how does that actually work though? Like, is it a long, like, does it take years to create a diamond or what does that process actually look like?
[14:03] Ryan Shearman Geologically, you know, deep in the earth where diamonds naturally occur and are formed, that process can take an extraordinarily long time, billions of years. In fact, most of the diamonds that you see on the street that people are wearing that come from diamond mines, those were formed, you know, anywhere from one to three billion years ago. The process by making, you know, by which you make a diamond in a laboratory is remarkably fast comparable to that. We’re talking about the order of maybe four or five weeks. The way it works, you know, we take CO2 from the air. We put it through a proprietary process to convert that CO2 into CH4, which is otherwise methane. Methane is the fossil fuel that others are buying from the oil and gas industry and bringing in as its raw material. We are synthesizing our own from carbon in the air. So we take some water, we split that into its disparate parts, oxygen and hydrogen, the hydrogen and that CO2 are put through this process and then ultimately, you know, recombine to make CH4. So now we have a clean version of methane. We call it ecomethane. We take our ecomethane and we put that into the diamond reactor. Essentially, you’re in a near vacuum. You pump in this gas, it’s just carbon and hydrogen, and you bombard it with a microwave, and it excites the hydrogen and the hydrogen turns into plasma. And the carbon that was attached to that starts to fall almost like snowflakes on your back porch over the course of, you know, a snowstorm. You see that build up. Similar to that over the course of a month, you see that carbon getting taller and taller. And ultimately, you know, we’re left with these pieces of crystalline diamond that we can cut out, polish and turn into beautiful gemstones. So all in from start to finish, it’s anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks, you know, from when carbon was captured. If it was linear, it happens in kind of stages, but all in 8 to 12 weeks total timeframe from air pollution to a piece of jewelry that might be sitting on your finger or your necklace or your ears, wherever it might be.
[15:56] Benn Marine HOFFMAN That’s incredible. And can folks tell the difference? Like if you were to bring, you know, an ether diamond to your local jeweler, would they be able to be like, oh, that’s air diamond? Like, would they know? Like, can you tell the difference?
[16:10] Ryan Shearman BELLAMY So essentially, even the world’s best gemologist wouldn’t be able to tell with the naked eye. There are expensive machines that you can buy that will tell you whether or not a diamond was grown in a laboratory versus, you know, pulled out of the ground. The types of equipment that, you know, your local jeweler would have, you know, they have these pen testers, they have these small little tabletop machines, those would not be able to distinguish between our diamonds and a mine diamond. That’s one of the things that’s really interesting about, you know, kind of what it is we’re doing. But really, just by eye, you could find the world’s most talented gemologist and they
[16:44] Benn Marine wouldn’t be able to tell. HOFFMAN Wow, that’s incredible. That’s amazing. And I know one of the goals of the company is to extract 100 million tons of CO2 from the air over the next 10 years. I’m curious, how much CO2 have you already removed
[17:00] Ryan Shearman from the air? BELLAMY So we’re actually going to be publishing our first sustainability report. We’re going to have an annual report. So we’re holding off on sharing those details publicly until the report comes out. That said, this year will be our first substantial year of offsetting. And it’s not all that goes into the diamonds. The beauty here of our core technology allows us to synthesize a number of different carbon products, call it raw materials, carbon-based raw materials. So as we scale over the course of the next five to 10 years, much of that impact is going to go beyond just the diamonds. And it’ll be things like graphite, for instance. Graphite is needed for every single lithium ion battery on the planet, which is the chemistry of choice. And as we go down that route, having a cost competitive and clean way of producing graphite here in North America opens up really interesting possibilities
[17:45] Benn Marine for working with domestic battery producers. RISA Oh, wow. That’s amazing. That is so cool. And so with that, I’m curious, the process of doing all that, what energy is you like, are you using renewable energy to do that? Or what does that look like?
[17:59] Ryan Shearman BELLAMY Yes. So we use renewable energy everywhere we can. And renewable is really not the right word. Clean energy or zero emission energy is better. Nuclear energy, for everything that the nuclear debate can bring into a certain conversation, we won’t get into that. But nuclear is zero emission power source. Some of our energy is nuclear. Some of it is solar. The vast majority of clean electrons that we’re bringing to bear are coming from solar. There’s a little bit of wind, there’s a little bit of everything really sprinkled in. We’re taking a kind of a portfolio approach to how we do that. The goal being to be completely vertically integrated with our own power generation on site at some point in the future. So that’s what we’re working towards. We’d like to get there in the not so distant future, next year and a half or so. RISA That’s amazing. That’s so cool. And I saw an interview where it came up that for every carrot, it removes 20 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere or you’re removing 20 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Am I getting that right? STU That’s our environmental commitment. So for every carat of diamond that we sell, obviously you’ve got a certain amount of carbon stored in the diamond. And then we go beyond that. And this is where it gets really exciting. We incorporate it as a public benefit corporation. The number one stakeholder in this business is Planet Earth. And that allows us to do some really interesting things and prioritize things the way we think they should be run in terms of building a company that embodies all of the values that our generation really cares about. So as we continue to move forward, I guess the best way of putting this is we’re always trying to do the right thing. We’re trying to make sure that we balance purpose and profit through everything. I hope that kind of paints a picture for the direction that we’re going and kind of how we organize our own thoughts internally around manufacturing, power consumption, vertical integration is a great idea. Can we do everything under one roof or we’re pulling carbon from the air up top and downstairs we’re growing our diamonds and then maybe on the other side of the buildings where we’re cutting and polishing them? Or do we slice off pieces of that and work with domain experts and partners? Those are all different things that we’re assessing constant and really doing it through the lens of mitigating our own environmental footprint external to what we do. Every time we ship a diamond, every time we order a piece of equipment, every time we do something like that, there’s a resulting emission and we want to make sure that the net math works out. So the 20 tons comes from us wanting to really go big. It was an arbitrary number at first. The average American essentially has a carbon footprint of about 16 tons per year. So we wanted to go a little bit bigger than that and it’s easy to speak to. For every carat of time we sell, we’re moving over a year’s worth of carbon. If we’re talking about a two carat stone, it actually nets out to about two and a half years of carbon. It’s just a really easy way of encapsulating the mission for consumers. You might not know what a metric ton of CO2 is, but you understand this is the amount of carbon that you’re emitting over the course of a year. That’s really how we set it. We’re extremely proud. Nobody in the industry is even coming close to this. So to be able to layer on top of the direct impact in terms of the carbon that’s going into the diamonds and go even bigger is something that we’re hoping to continue to grow
[21:14] Benn Marine over time. That is so cool. That is really cool. And speaking of all of the good works you’re doing, you’re also a certified B Corp in addition to being a benefit corporation. I’m curious, how did you hear about B Corp certification and why did it feel so important to pursue that?
[21:29] Ryan Shearman As a consumer for me, I forget exactly when I learned about B Corp. It was several years ago at this point I started seeing the logo pop up from brands that I know are mission oriented and really put their money where their mouths are. If I as a consumer care about this enough to influence my own purchasing decisions, surely the products that we’re making should have this as well. So we started the process in 2020. It took us, I want to say, was it 2020? No. You know what? I think it was actually 2021. But regardless, it took us about a year and a half to go through the assessment. It’s extremely laborious, but it was worth it. We are the first and only diamond producer on planet Earth with B Corp certification. So we’re extremely proud of that fact. We’re constantly looking to continue to innovate and be ahead of the curve. It’s not the only third party certification we have. It won’t be the last. I’m curious, what are some of the other certifications you have? Believe it or not, we’re actually the first and only vegan diamond on the planet. So that certification, people say, oh, vegan. I mean, I’m not eating diamonds, but being vegan is much more than that. To be able to produce a diamond in a laboratory that needed fossil fuels that are coming from companies that have massive oil spills in their corporate history, a track record of destroying local ecologies, anything that harms life in that way is not considered vegan. So for what we’re doing and the fact that we get to not only sidestep the environmental issues related to emissions, but other kind of scope three environmental impacts, like working with fossil fuel industry, that gives us an opportunity to have that certification. And then in terms of our operating carbon footprint, we work with a group called Natural Capital Partners to assess, what does it take to keep these lights on? What does it take to ship a product out? All of the additional emissions I had mentioned earlier, when we order a piece of equipment, whatever it might be, we work with Natural Capital Partners to assess our footprint there and offset our operational footprint. So separate from manufacturing, separate from everything we’re doing on the product side, we just want to make sure that our environmental
[23:36] Benn Marine overhead is being considered as well. That’s amazing. That’s so great. I love that. What do you think working through the assessment was most challenging?
[23:44] Ryan Shearman I will say, I mean, the entire process was challenging. It’s onerous. This is why, the number of companies that have B Corp certification is still remarkably small. There are only, I think, four diamond jewelry companies in the world or four jewelry companies that sell diamonds in their products that have B Corp certification. There are many, many, many, many more than four diamond jewelry companies in the world. So this just gives you some insight into how hard it is. I think it was a good exercise for us because it kept us, one, on our toes. It forced us to really organize our data in a way that would make it presentable. It kept us honest throughout everything that we’ve been doing up until now. As we’re building new processes internally, as we’re selecting new vendors, everything was looked at through the lens of like, hey, we’re going through a B Corp certification and we need to be mindful of that. And we weren’t doing it just to check a box. We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do. Broadly speaking, the whole process was challenging. But organizing the data, presenting it in a way that substantiates our claims, working with third parties to really certify those claims as well, it required a lot of coordination, a lot of handholding of external folks, and then sometimes even being persistent to the point of being annoying to try and get data
[24:58] Benn Marine from some of our external vendors. Well, way to be persistent. That’s great. What would you say was, and you kind of touched on this a little bit, but was most rewarding? Like, I’m curious, have you, since being certified, have you run into any partnerships or even just the
[25:14] Ryan Shearman process of becoming a certified B Corp? I mean, immediately when we announced that there was a jewelry brand that reached out, this is one of a couple different anecdotes, but it just goes to show the power in what we’re doing. This jewelry company reached out to us right away and said, hey, we’re interested in carrying some of your diamonds. We’ve since had many other conversations in that same vein, and they were very quick to reference the B Corp announcement. So it’s having a tangible impact on the business. So it validates our own assumptions as to what’s important. And
[25:47] Benn Marine now we’re seeing the fruits of those labors. That’s amazing. And actually, speaking of kind of seeing that actualized, I did notice last night was the Oscars. I noticed Zoe
[25:58] Ryan Shearman Saldana was wearing your diamonds. We were really excited about the opportunity to have our jewelry worn by Zoe. It was actually, I think we had sent it out last week and we were scrambling to get stuff shipped out in time to get it out to LA. You’ll see more of that in the coming year. And as we get into next year’s red carpet, we’re building a whole collection of amazing high-end statement pieces to be worn for red carpet specifically. A big part of our mission is getting lab-grown in general out into the zeitgeist in an even bigger way than it already has. And then hopefully being the leading edge of that and working with well-known faces, celebrities, actors, actresses, athletes, musicians, you name it. People who are part of our culture, tastemakers and people who care about the environment, people who care about social responsibility and leveraging those relationships to get our stuff out there in the world and hopefully build some buzz and grow some awareness. At the end of the day, if you’re a luxury consumer, you care about quality and you care about the overall impact of the goods that you’re buying, nobody can hold a candle to us. But if we can’t get that message out there, consumers can’t make educated decisions. So making sure that we work with the right folks to do that, get our story out there into the world and let people know what we’re doing,
[27:18] Benn Marine that’s really important. It’s true. And I imagine that there would even be some folks like, I know for myself, like I always, you know, never had any interest in gifting diamonds or receiving, you know, just because of the environmental and social impact. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m like, oh, maybe I want diamonds. I don’t know. That’s exciting. And I imagine there’s more of me
[27:39] Ryan Shearman out there, right? Like I imagine there are more people that share that experience. This is one of the first things we were really surprised at early on. When we first launched our brand, we had people emailing us saying almost verbatim, like, hey, I had written off diamonds. You know, I told my partner, I told my significant other, I wasn’t interested in the diamond engagement ring. You just never really know where they’re coming from. If they’re mined, there’s human rights issues, conflict diamonds, yada, yada, yada on the environmental front. People who are like really educated would understand why regular lab grown diamonds were falling short of the claims that many, many companies were making. The Federal Trade Commission had to step in and actually, you know, essentially make public statements and scold certain companies and threaten to take action because there were claims that were being made that could not be substantiated from an environmental perspective. You know, we came out and this is why third party certification is so important for us. I don’t need you as a consumer to take my word for it, right? Who are we? We’re a young brand. We want to be able to lean on, you know, reputable independent parties to say, see, told you, you know, this is why we’re, what we’re doing is so important and it’s so tangible and it’s verifiable. But having consumers say, you know, for the first time in my life, I look at what you’re doing and now I’m interested. Because at the end of the day, qualitatively, diamonds are beautiful. You know, there’s something that a diamond has that no other gemstone has. That’s why they’re diamonds. That’s why they play the role in our society that they do today. And if you can still have that, and if you can still capture that essence and that beauty without any of the negative externalities, you know, that’s something that now all of a sudden opens the market up to an entire segment of the populace that would have otherwise never shopped for a diamond. So we’re excited about that. Hopefully we can help grow the market a little bit. And that’s something that we can continue to lean into as really the primary, the leader in this space of creating diamonds from air and, you know, being a pioneer when it comes to ethical sourcing of diamonds.
[29:30] Benn Marine That’s it. It’s also a great story. You know, I imagine if I had diamonds, I would want to tell everybody about it. Be like, how cool is this? This was made from air, right? That’s cool stuff. You know, as someone who invests in social enterprises and as co-founder of Aether Diamonds, I’m curious, what advice would you give to listeners that might also have dreams of starting a social enterprise, but maybe they just don’t know where to start or they feel
[29:53] Ryan Shearman overwhelmed with the whole process? I mean, I was right there three years ago, you know, and when we first came up with this idea, it was a little bit of luck and timing. Ultimately, I knew that I needed to do something that was in the vein of social responsibility, environmental responsibility. My legacy is not going to be the number of zeros at the end of my bank account when I shuffle off this mortal coil. You know, I have an 18-month, 19-month-old son. I have a daughter who’s due in July. What I’m doing now is for them. What I’m doing now is for their kids. And that’s the mentality I think you have to take. We are here for a finite period of time, but planet Earth is going to be here for a much longer period of time. So if you can do anything to make the time we have here better for other people on this planet or set us all up for success when it comes to longevity, you know, these are things that we collectively need to be doing. So I encourage, I’m the oldest of six kids and I encourage my younger siblings, you know, when you’re looking to your next job, when you’re trying to figure out what’s next for you in your career, like nothing has been more fulfilling than working in climate. And it’s something I’m such a big advocate for. So climate is not an industry, it’s a lens. And it’s going to impact every single industry on this planet. So whether you come from finance, whether you come from light or heavy manufacturing, you come from fashion, you name an industry, climate is going to impact it and every industry will need climate experts. So this is the coolest thing about this opportunity. We’re going to see some of the biggest wealth creation in human history happen in the coming decades surrounding itself around climate change and the solutions that are being developed to apply towards climate change across every industry. So you can still have your niche, you can still, you don’t need to have a complete career change, but those who become domain experts when it comes to climate, everything happening related to climate in their different sectors, those are going to be people who stand to benefit the most over the course of the next 20, 30 years. And I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to do it. So my unabashed broad advocacy is for anyone and everyone listening to this to understand how climate is impacting your industry and see how you can embrace that and use it to further yourself in your career and do good for the planet at the same time. Absolutely. Love that. Any other thoughts or parting advice you want to leave listeners with? There’s a saying, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. I always thought that was really hokey. When I started my first venture-backed startup, we were doing something in the power sports industry. I’m an action sports nut. I love riding motorcycles and I loved what I was doing and it was really great. And then I got to eventually transition out of power sports and back into jewelry, which is where I kind of started my career. And it was like reuniting with an old friend and I love the nature of the work. And I literally got to reunite with old friends and being able to enjoy what I do has made every single day. Startups are not easy. They are very difficult. But enjoying the nature of the work has made it a lot more palatable, has made it something I wake up in the morning and don’t say, oh, I have to go to work. I say, I get to go to work. So if you’re in an industry that you love and you can be that climate person and you can find a way to envelop things that you enjoy in your day to day, that’s the most rewarding thing anyone can ask for. So I encourage everyone to chase their passions and see how it maps to kind of their own personal values.
[33:39] Benn Marine Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. To learn more about Aether Diamonds or to explore any of the companies that Ryan mentioned, be sure to check out the full show notes on the Responsibly Different website at responsiblydifferent.com. Or you can also find a link from the show notes on whatever podcast player you’re tuning in from. As always, if you’re enjoying this content, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. We truly appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in and thank you for all the work that you are doing out in the universe. We’re all in this together. Till next time, be responsibly different. This is a production of Dear Go Collective. To learn more about Dear Go Collective, head on over to deargocollective.com. That’s D-I-R-I-G-O-collective.com. This episode was hosted and produced by yours truly, Ben Marine. To learn more about Responsibly Different and discover all the other content we have for you, head on over to responsiblydifferent.com.