Virginia Postrel, Columnist

‘Natural’ and ‘Ethical’ Are Getting a Divorce

Diamonds from a lab and leather from a vat are better for people and the planet (and no less luxurious) than the stuff nature provides.

May 11, 2021 at 2:30 PM UTC

By Virginia Postrel

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

Dig for diamonds? Why?
Photographer: Angela Wwiss/AFP via Getty Images

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Vegan silk and leather, mine-free diamonds, bioengineered perfumes: Lab-grown products with ethical appeal could be the future of luxury. Exemplified by the announcement last week that giant jeweler Pandora A/S will no longer use mined diamonds in its products, the emergence of these high-tech luxury goods represents a significant cultural shift.

Since the first Earth Day a half-century ago, large industries have grown from the widespread conviction that “natural” foods, fibers, cosmetics and other products are better for people and the planet. It’s an attitude that dates back to the 18th- and 19th-century Romantics, who rejected industrialism in favor of sublime landscapes and rural nostalgia: What’s given is good; what’s made is suspicious, especially if it’s of recent origin.