Sir David Attenborough has set in motion a global movement which has managed to engage the entire world and yet it has left me wondering how on earth our industry can fit in. I don’t think you need to have seen his Blue Planet II documentary to feel the impact. The shock waves this programme has caused is compelling me and other brands into action.
My wife is German, and recycling has been drilled into her generation for decades. In our household, the culture I grew up with was tantamount to a total disregard of the environment. Over the years, these divergent views have often clashed with my wife’s more enlightened vision. Although I’ve experienced a gentle re-programming at home, it was my business which was the source of much heated debate.
When I would bring her home new glasses, instead of ‘wonderful darling’ it would be ‘that’s a complete waste’ in reference to my luxury packaging or ‘is that plastic necessary’ in relation to the zip locked bags we would ship the frames in.
Over the years I became more and more conscious of the waste we were creating as a business as I realised that not only was my wife correct, but she didn’t know the half of it. I was ashamed.
Two years ago, when I told journalists that one of the reasons I started a factory in London was I didn’t like flying around the world, they thought it was my aversion to jet lag. But it was just as much the fact that I didn’t like flying spectacles around the world as well as myself because it just didn’t seem right to be making frames for someone in London, then flying them 6,000 miles around the world. But carbon footprints and pollution are only part of the problem.
After Blue Planet II aired, I took a fresh look at our industry. From grinding lenses in the backs of shops spitting out micro plastics into the water system, single use contact lenses and their packaging and even the wastage just from cutting the acetate frames. Is all manufacturing as polluting as this? Or is the eyewear industry just particularly good at it?
I had an intern from France start a six-month project to analyse my company’s waste footprint and our carbon footprint. She’s not finished yet, but I had a peek at the findings last week and they make for grim reading. As a company, my environmental policy was well meaning as I played with recycled boxes and recycled acetate. But saying you are going to be environmental as a business seems a bit like going on a diet – easy to go on but hard to stick to. I now realise that we must change our diet completely. I need to find the business equivalent of going vegan.
If companies like mine are to succeed at this, then opticians and customers need to demand more from manufacturers and brands. I’m going to set some targets for my company to follow. It is not going to be easy. I know how to do some of it. For example, compostable frame bags made from starch, leather cases instead of PVC cases, solar powered factories, but I’m not sure if I can make acetate without plasticiser? Or cut lenses without waste. Or convince people to use the contact lens recycle points we have put in our stores.
I’ve always admired David Attenborough, but I don’t think I’d like to create a bespoke frame for him at the moment. Not until I’ve changed our ways for good.