Lab-grown Diamonds: Sustainable Choice for Consumers?
Sustainability is one of the main arguments supported by synthetic diamonds manufacturers to promote their product as an alternative to mined diamond. Sustainability is perceived in terms of carbon footprints, ecology and social/human impact.… Read More
Business and Human Rights in the Extractive sector – Impressions from the 2018 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights
The UN Forum on Business and Human Rights
From 26-28thof November 2018, the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights was held in Geneva. The Forum is the world’s largest annual gathering on business and human rights with more than 2,000 participants from government, business, community groups and civil society, law firms, investor organizations, UN bodies, national human rights institutions, trade unions, academia and the media [1].… Read More
Not Your Average Indigenous
While writing about the ‘indigenous people’, one can easily fall into the trap of romanticisation and homogenisation. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues describes the indigenous people as “the holders of unique languages, knowledge systems and beliefs and possess invaluable knowledge of practices for the sustainable management of natural resources”.… Read More
Film Review and Thoughts – “Deepwater Horizon” by Peter Berg, 2016.
This movie is about the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform and the oil spill that happened in April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. The whole movie revolves around the events occurred before the explosion and around the moment of the explosion itself, which is good because it gives the spectator an idea of how the oil industry works and of how the different actors relate to each other.… Read More
Price Difference of Lab-created Diamonds from Natural Diamonds
Synthetic diamonds are chemically, physically and optically identical to earth-mined diamonds, but they are man-made with the use of advanced technology. There are two key methods for making synthetic diamonds, High-Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT) process and Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD).… Read More
De Beers’ move into synthetic diamonds
De Beers company, the diamond pioneer that has operated mines from the Arctic to South Africa, which has convinced the world that “a diamond is forever” and strongly believed that only mined diamonds are real and rare, is now getting into the lab-created diamond business.… Read More
The Tribe who won a David and Goliath Battle – Temporality
“The Dongria Kondh tribe inspired millions when they won a ‘David and Goliath’ battle against mining giant Vedanta” (Survival International)
Huge mining production sites are set up and operated by a large corporation on a global scale.… Read More
The Politics of Indigeneity
“Where there is indigenous land, there is wealth underneath it.” – Jair Bolsonaro
President elect Bolsonaro in Brazil has promised to roll back environmental protections and indigenous rights in order to harvest the natural resources within the Amazon.… Read More
Can Blockchain Technologies Democratize the Energy Sector? The Case of Lition
A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a fascinating article titled, “Ethereum Energy Project Now Powers 700 Households in 10 Cities” which briefly details the beginning operations of a “peer to peer” energy trading platform.