With gloomier predictions emerging by the day about our increasing levels of environmental waste and resource scarcity, there is no better time than now to consider the benefits of sustainable eyewear for your practice’s appeal to eco-aware patients.
Optics does not do sustainability particularly well at present. Discarded contact lenses, obsolete frames, manufacturing waste from edging and pollution generated from global supply chains are but a few of the environmental concerns that surround the industry.
There is, however, cause for optimism. Several exhibitors at this year’s Opti Munich were showcasing ethical and sustainably made eyewear that the industry ought to take note of.
Monkey Glasses, a Danish company started in 2009, argues consumers can ‘look good while doing good’. Designed in Copenhagen, the company attracts ‘conscious consumers’ and its frames are made from a ‘biodegradable cotton fibre material’ along with stainless steel. Its new collection, Elevate 2019-1, delivers frames in recycled paper, rather than plastic, packaging.
The approach of its founders and CEOs, Mai-Britt and Morten Seaton, is to create fashionable, affordable frames that combine ‘respect for the people involved in making the products, as well as taking care of the environment and our planet.’
Moreover, the company supports SaveTheOrangutan.org, an organisation working to protect extinction threatened orangutans in Borneo. It hopes that ‘by combining sustainability, quality and Danish design, every optician will want to have a green area in their store’.
Paris-based Waiting For the Sun was one of the first companies to ‘offer wooden sunglasses at an affordable price’, says its co-founder and creative director, Julien Tual. ‘We are committed to an ecological approach and, in designing our collection, we wanted to signal this commitment.’
In its search for an environmentally friendly way of creating frames, the company designed, developed and patented Bois2 – a ‘new generation of organic plastic’ that is ‘100% biodegradable and renewable,’ says Tual. The material is quite special; a combination of organic acetate and recycled wood compressed together that took years to develop.
As well as this, Waiting For the Sun has an extensive catalogue of environmentally sustainable and ethically produced frames, all of which are hand made in France. Customers can purchase frames made from Bois2, oil and carcinogen-free acetate, recycled wood and beta-titanium. Waste throughout the manufacturing process is then used to make new frames in a sustainable cycle, explains Tual.
Monkey Glasses combine sustainability, quality and Danish design
Born in the wild, white wilderness of Swedish Lapland in 2010, EOE eyewear says it was the first on the market to create eyewear without any phthalates – an industrial chemical normally used in the production process that can be extremely harmful to the environment and wildlife when exposed – explains EOE’s communications manager, Josefin Gustafsson.
Today, the company claims it is the leading sustainable eyewear brand in Scandanavia. All of its eyewear is sustainably produced and entirely recyclable and biodegradable. Currently, the models are designed in Lapland and are then made in Italy, but the company hopes to one day move production entirely to Sweden to cut emissions.
Moving away from the arctic uplands of Scandinavia, Dick Moby draws its purpose from an abhorrence of plastic, oceanic pollution. Founders Robbert Wefers Bettink and Tim Holland created the company in 2014 after a surfing trip marred by plastic pollution.
Dick Moby produces both sunglasses and spectacles that are either made from recycled plastic or bio-based materials – such as M49 plastic developed by Mazzucchelli. The Italian producer’s involvement means that Dick Moby can now offer customers frames consisting of 97% recycled acetate, with the remaining 3% simply being black ink. For non-black models, bio-based acetate is still used, which excludes crude oil or plasticisers. All of the company’s sunglasses are made using coated Zeiss lenses with UV400 protection, adding quality to sustainability and substantiating the company’s slogan: ‘quality is key, sustainability is king.’
Another exciting exhibitor was Freisicht, a sustainable eyewear company based in Germany. Designer Thomas Winter explains what makes the brand sustainable: ‘Freisicht manufactures wooden spectacles with a material that is second to none. In this way, unique pieces are created without compromise. Neither in the material, in the function nor in the design.’
Freisicht uses regional types of wood, a potential, Winter says, that is ‘far from exhausted’. He argues that modern technologies and traditional knowledge of woodwork ‘open up new sustainable possibilities’.
‘We are the only manufacturer in the industry to offer solid wood eyewear that is ergonomically adjustable,’ says Winter. ‘Real wooden glasses with biomorphic design, unique haptics and colour impression.’
