Engaging with the conversation around ethical sourcing feels as important as ever today. As we find ourselves contemplating who and what we support with our dollars, establishing documented, verifiable origin will be an important step towards addressing some of the shortcomings inherent in the Kimberly Process and our industry. When we first shot this video in January, we had no idea just how relevant the topic would come to feel a few short weeks later with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many of you have reached out to us in recent weeks with questions about Russian origin diamonds and the efficacy of international sanctions in stemming the flow of these diamonds into the global marketplace. These questions bring to light a few of the dilemmas that face the diamond industry today. While the majority of diamonds currently in circulation are compliant to the UN approved standards laid out in the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) and are labelled as conflict free, these diamonds are more often than not sold without documented provenance in mixed origin lots, making it impossible to differentiate the origin of the diamonds within. The KPCS also fails to address ongoing human rights abuses and negative environmental impacts of large scale mining globally. We believe that transparent, verifiable origin is an important first step towards addressing many of these issues. Once origin is established, we can begin to address questions of the humanitarian conditions involved in the mining, cutting and polishing of these precious stones, along with the environmental impacts of these processes. Over the past two years since Misfit was founded we have been working with our manufacturing partners and vendors to create a blueprint for a traceable chain of custody from mine to polish. Last fall we launched our collection of Canadian origin diamonds from the Gahcho Kué Mine where we documented the journey of the diamonds with verifiable data points for each stone from rough to polish. Continued in comments👇🏼