At De Beers we are in a unique position; we are involved right from the discovery of diamonds, throughout their journey to becoming exquisite pieces of jewellery. This means that every day we see first-hand how precious natural diamonds are, not only for the people who wear them, but for all those they touch along their way.

It is therefore our commitment, responsibility and passion to ensure that every diamond we discover, creates a lasting positive impact for the people and places where they are found. We call this commitment Building Forever and it sits at the heart of everything that we do. It is our guide to a better future, one that is fairer, safer, cleaner and healthier, where communities thrive and the environment is protected. Through Building Forever, we’ve been focusing on four key areas which matter most to us and our partners.

Building Forever Women
Since 2017, we’ve been working in partnership with UN Women, including through our AWOME (Accelerating Women Owned Micro-Enterprises) programme, which aims to support women entrepreneurs to build their businesses in southern Africa.

Building Forever Women Programm
Our original partnership with UN Women lasted three years, during which time over 50 local trainers were trained to deliver the programme, providing business advice, networks and mentoring to over 1,000 entrepreneurs. Following its early success, in 2021 we extended our partnership with UN Women for a further five years and set a goal to reach 10,000 women micro-entrepreneurs by 2030.

Diamonds are one of nature’s greatest gifts. Brilliant, beautiful, billions of years old, but also with the power to create a better future. Building Forever is our way of honouring these remarkable treasures and ensuring that every one of our diamonds can be worn with pride, safe in the knowledge they have created a positive impact for the people and places where they were found.

Celine Assimon, CEO of De Beers Jewellers

Building Forever Wildlife

Wildlife conservation

Inspired by nature from the very start, De Beers has been managing nature reserves around our operations for over 120 years. Now, through our Diamond Route, we protect 500,000 acres across southern Africa. In fact, for every acre of land we use for mining, we manage six acres for conservation. As a result, our Diamond Route has become a safe home for many of Africa’s most iconic and threatened species and plays a vitally important role in conservation for southern Africa, even helping to rewild and repopulate other areas. It also hosts innovative conservation programmes, including the longest elephant translocation ever attempted, alongside education and ecotourism programmes to raise awareness of the importance of conservation.

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LEADING ETHICAL PRACTICES

We work tirelessly to advance industry standards and drive greater confidence in diamonds. Through our Best Practice Principles, we’ve set the industry’s strictest health, safety, labour and environmental standards, which ensure that all our diamonds are conflict-free and responsibly and ethically sourced. We are also developing pioneering digital sourcing and traceability solutions, through our Tracr and Gemfair programmes.

PARTNERING FOR THRIVING COMMUNITIES

We continue to support community resilience, providing world class healthcare to our employees and local communities around our operations, as well as high quality education that is fit for the future through the schools we manage and support. We also create livelihood opportunities through our entrepreneur development programmes for youth, women and established business owners in southern Africa.

OUR STORIES

Building Forever Sustainability

350,000

350,000 people are covered by our Best Practice Principles, which independently assure health, safety, labour and environment standards

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Building Forever Protecting

6:1

For every 1 hectare of land used for mining, we manage 6 hectares for conservation through our Diamond Route

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Building Forever Prevention

10

Thanks to our pioneering HIV programme, we’ve marked more than 10 years of no babies being born with HIV to De Beers Group mothers.

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Building Forever Awome

10,000

We’ve been supporting women entrepreneurs across southern Africa, to build their businesses. We aim to reach 10,000 women entrepreneurs by 2030

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Building Forever Moving Giant

200

We’re moving 200 elephants from our reserve in South Africa where there are too many, to help rewild a national park in Mozambique.

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PROTECTING THE NATURAL WORLD

We continually work to protect the natural world and the wildlife and biodiversity it supports, including through our 200,000 hectare Diamond Route network in southern Africa, which we manage for conservation. We are also harnessing ground-breaking research and technology to support our journey to become carbon neutral by reducing, replacing and recovering emissions, as well as minimising our water footprint across our operations, offices and stores.

ACCELERATING EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

We continue to strive for equal opportunity for all and aim to build a more inclusive workforce and reach gender parity. In partnership with UN Women and local partners, we’ve been supporting women micro-entrepreneurs to build their businesses alongside engaging girls in STEM. We’re also working to increase diversity in the jewellery sector, providing opportunities for young and aspiring designers from our partner countries to showcase their talents and win scholarships to study design. Discover our Building Forever 2030 goals: To Build Forever, we need to continuously challenge ourselves to do better. This is why we have set ourselves 12 ambitious goals across our focus areas to achieve by 2030, ranging from becoming carbon neutral across our operations to supporting 10,000 female micro-entrepreneurs to build their businesses. Discover more about Building Forever and progress towards our 2030 goals here.