You might think that every mechanical watch, made in Switzerland or otherwise, is inherently sustainable – no built-in obsolescence, every part repairable. “You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation,” and all that. But what’s the cost (in sustainability terms) of the mining of gemstones and metals, the energy needed to produce glass, plastics and ceramics, the production of rubber or leather?“Behind the polished face of a luxury watch, a potentially immense ecological footprint is hidden,” said the World Wildlife Fund only two years ago in a report on the Swiss watch business with its long and varied supply chain of metals and gemstones.
On the plus side, sustainability is now the primary driver of business innovation according to the Harvard Business Review. At the top end of the watch industry, brands including Cartier, LVMH, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Omega, Chopard and IWC Schaffhausen are now signed up to the Responsible Jewellery Council, whose certification looks at an ethical supply chain covering gold, silver, platinum group metals, diamonds and coloured gemstones. Since 2018, 100 per cent of Chopard’s gold has come from ethical sources and, like Rolex, it operates its own gold foundry so it can recycle. IWC Schaffhausen releases a sustainability report to the public every two years; and Richemont and LVMH both have policies that go far beyond legal mandate.
But who is looking beyond the traditional watchmaking raw materials to create new, potentially reusable and recyclable products for the future? A good place to start is with those highlighting the need to clean up the oceans. They’ll never remove the eight million tonnes of plastic that leaches into our seas every year, but with innovation they are recycling some of that and raising awareness.
Tom Ford recently launched its Ocean Plastic Timepiece (£895). The plastic used in the making of the watch is “100 per cent ocean plastic” with “an average of 35 bottles of plastic waste used per product including watch and strap”. For every 1,000 watches sold, Tom Ford reduces plastic waste to the “equivalent of 35,000 water bottles or approximately 490lbs of plastic”. The raw material was collected in the oceans, along coastlines and from uncontrolled landfills.
It’s important to consider the way the plastic has been recycled, too, which in Tom Ford’s case is a “100 per cent mechanical” process developed with the Swiss University of Applied Science that used only solar energy. Look out for Tide Ocean Material in association with other manufacturers. It’s the Swiss outfit behind the collection, upcycling and verifying of the plastics used by Tom Ford. “We give plastic waste a value” is the company’s mantra.
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