Oris, Norqain, Ulysse Nardin Make Efforts For A Green Planet

With recycling, upcycling, sustainability and the environment at the forefront of global discussions, Swiss watch brands are doing their part to bring sustainability and planet awareness to the fore front. In fact, today’s watch brands are more environmentally conscious than ever before, and some have been leading the way towards preservation of Earth’s resources for a couple of decades now. Other have pulled out all the stops in recent years to create timepieces with upcycled or recycled materials, to support causes that save the oceans, forests and endangered animals, and formed foundations that help civilizations around the world.

Many watch brands are working toward a zero carbon footprint in their manufactures with solar heating, recycled water, and encouraging employees to bike to work. Some have even begun their own sustainability reports – a relatively new standard in the watch industry.

While big-name brands like Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Omega have created huge foundations, such as Rolex’s Perpetual Planet, The Audemars Piguet Foundation, and Omega’s Planet Ocean that can help in larger scope, other brands are doing their part in the race to prove that every action counts. Here we take a look at three brands and their efforts.

Oris

“We are just one company doing what we can, but if all companies did something, it would make a bigger impact,” says Rolf Studer, CEO of Oris, a brand that has many grassroots level involvements around the world, including supporting the Coral Restoration Foundation, the Billion Oyster program, and more. It has even conducted beach cleanups around the world, which led to the creation of the Oris Aquis Date Upcycle watch with dial made of recycled PET bottles. “If all brands made efforts, even on a grassroots level like we do, it will help.”

With a self-mandated mission to bring “Change for the Better,” independently owned Oris recently teamed with Everwave, which is developing a prototype floating platform to scoop up waste from the oceans and that has thus far collected more than 258 tons of waste. Also, in mid-2022, Oris teamed with the Billion Oyster Project working to repopulate New York’s Harbors with oysters (one billion by 2035). Oysters generally pick up pollutants in the water and are a good indicator species.

Teaming with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation to protect these species around the world, and also having worked for years with the Coral Restoration Foundation to outplant coral and protect coral reefs are projects that put Oris in the forefront on local levels.

Ulysse Nardin

Similarly, Ulysse Nardin is a big supporter of saving the oceans and preserving ocean species. The brand supports shark research and tagging, and even has a few divers (as well as explorers) on its roster of brand ambassadors, that it works with to support their causes. With a long history ingrained in marine and maritime watches, Ulysse Nardin regularly aligns itself with the water. In fact, Ulysse Nardin is one of the first brands to have created an entire watch, not just a dial or a strap, out of recycled fishing nets.

The brand is the Official Timing Partner and Time to Act Partner of The Ocean Race that began in January of this year and that witnesses teams sailing around the world over a six-month period. Time to Act is committed to ocean conservation and is overseeing projects like educating locals about conservation in different cities the sailors land in, and the use of a Science Program wherein race boats and sailors collect critical water and data from remote parts of the ocean. Its role in The Ocean Race complements Ulysse Nardin’s efforts with Ocearch, shark study and more.

Norqain

On land, the relatively young family-owned Swiss brand Norqain supports the preservation of lions, working with wildlife brand ambassador Dean Schneider, founder of Hakuna Mipaka wildlife sanctuary and animal rehabilitation center in South Africa. Schneider left his entrepreneurial finance career in Switzerland in 2017 and established Hakuna Mipaka, translated in Swahili as “No Limits,” to help save the lions. The sanctuary, which is not open to the public, also plays home to leopards, giraffes, zebras and other animals.

Norqain creates special edition timepieces in its Wild One collection to support the sanctuary, with 10 percent of the proceeds of the sale of each watch going to the cause. Additionally, these watches boats animal friendly straps, and Norqain now takes that a step further. All future product launches – not just Wild One watches — will be fitted with animal friendly straps: fabric straps, vegan leather, certified perlon straps, rubber straps with a crocodile texture and metal bracelets.

Reforestation efforts come from brands like Breitling and CuleM, among others and brands that are turning to recycled and upcycled materials for use in watches include Roger Dubuis and Zenith who reuse rubber tires, William Wood, which makes straps from old fire hoses, and others. (Stay tuned for another article on these efforts.)