Introduction
Sustainable Watches are a great gift for anyone who wants to add to their watch collection, whilst also wanting to be conscious of what company they’re purchasing products from.
These brands are all remarkable and made me feel very proud of the potential of what we can do when we consider more than profit in our products.
Original Grain
Original Grain is a unique brand that provides a variety of different products from watches to rings. These are all handcrafted, using sustainable materials, such as reclaimed wood to give each product a unique look and feel.
Reforestation Efforts
They have partnered with Trees of the future to help restore environments and reduce carbon offset of worldwide pollution, by planting trees. The reforestation efforts in the Umpqua National Forest will help maintain and allow future generations to enjoy the beautiful environment and natural attractions the Umpqua National forest provides.
Materials
Original Grain pride itself on providing a seamless fusion of all-natural, sustainable hardwoods and stainless steel. Original grain use reclaimed wood and sustainably sourced materials, to ensure their products, with reusable packaging.
Their use of reclaimed wood makes every watch, one of a kind due to the unique striations of the wood used for the watch. To create a truly unique and stylish piece of art on anyone’s wrist.
Their features and materials used are transparently laid out on the product page of their website, eliminating any questions needed on the materials they have used to produce your future watch.
Originality
Originality is at the core of every product produced by Original Grain with their use of reclaimed wood makes every watch and piece of jewellery, one of a kind due to the unique striations of the wood used for their products.
Original Grain makes it known what wooden product they used to forge their handcrafted watches. This source of material varies from Reclaimed Guitar Wood; Whiskey Barrels; Wine stained Oak; Reclaimed Tequila Barrels; Hawaiian Koad Wood and many more. They have done this to create a truly unique, and stylish product.
Solios
Solios pride itself on its quality, environmentally driven focus, openness and transparency of its practices.
B Corp Certification
Solois are a B Corp Certified organisation meaning they are legally required to consider the impacts of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment. This is reflected and scored based on a plethora of questions based on the organisation’s day-to-day activities, whilst requiring proof of these claims. Solios’ B Impact score is 89.5 after only 1.5 years in business. When compared to the average for ordinary businesses is 50.9.
Reforestation Efforts
The watch company also donates to The rainforest trusts, who make it their mission to protect endangered rainforests lands. For every watch bought 10 acres of land is protected (approximately)
Solios pride itself on its recycling program, whereby you can send them your old watch and they’ll provide you with a 35 USD discount on your Solios watch to encourage and support its circular economy ethos.
Renewable Energy
Solios pride itself on its innovative use of solar power to replace batteries in its watches. This allows eyes to use both artificial and daylight to charge their looks allowing you to have a working watch all year round! It’s fantastic to see renewable energy used in this way. This perfectly illustrates the potential the future can hold with an innovative mind like Solios.
This is only a handful of Solio’s environmental policies! Check out their website for more.
Nordgreen
Nordgreen is truly an amazing company to purchase products from given their quality and belief in giving back. As well as their transparency in their production processes is phenomenal with available information on their plastic offset, traceability and their shipping logistics.
Environmental Certifications
Nordgreen also has numerous certifications that align with environmental management, carbon offsetting, animal welfare and so much more. Such as Global Recycling Standards (GRS), Global Organic Textile STandardard (GOTS), Fairtrade, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Leather Working Group (LWG) and many more.
Giving Back Programme
They have a giving back programme, whereby once you purchase a watch, you choose one of their 3 partnered NGOs that tackle health, education and environmental causes at no extra charge to the consumer.
| Types of Causes Nordgreen Supports | NGO Partnerships | What Happens The NGOS Receive When You Purchase A Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Health Cause | Water For Good | They provide 2 months of clean water to someone in the Central African Republic |
| Education Cause | Pratham UK | This gives one month of education to a child in India |
| Environmental Cause | Cool Earth | When you purchase a watch you will preserve 200sq feet of rainforest in South America |
The Sustainable Watch Company
The Sustainable each company is a smaller watch brand from the list, they may be smaller. Nevertheless, they come with big dreams with high standards set for themselves in terms of quality and environmental policies. I love to See it!
The Sustainable Watch Company, aim to ‘build a business with a focus on environmental impact and not solely profit.’
Reforestation Efforts
Planting 10 trees for every watch bought through their partnership with Ecology. Their reforestation efforts help promote wildlife through cleaner air and water, as this additionally supports biodiversity through thriving habitats.
Carbon Offsetting
The Sustainable Watch Company offset 250kg of Carbon per order with the help of their partnership with Ecology and pride themselves on their donations to Stripe Climate as well!
Making them a climate-positive workforce, offsetting more carbon per head than their force generates. This is a statement very few organisations can make!
Materials
The company champion its use of vegan materials as none of its products contains animal products, with stylish leather alternatives.
Watches are also handmade, using recycled natural woods and environmentally friendly products and packaging.
I look forward to seeing what else The Sustainable Wtach Company will bring in the next couple of years!
2°EAST
This company aspire to lead the way in producing products that don’t cost the earth, as this is evident with their deliberate efforts in offsetting through partnerships, materials used, and preventative measure put in place to assure their customers and the environment that their products will go through the test of time.
They didn’t take any shortcuts during this process!
Reforestation Efforts
2°EAST has partnered with Trees for the Future as part of their ongoing commitment to social and environmental responsibility this partnership lets them have 30 trees planted for every watch sold. What I love about this is the additional detail they’ve added to this policy as they go on to describe ‘Trees for the Future trains farmers to plant and manage Forest Gardens that sustainably feed families, raise their incomes by 400 per cent, and end deforestation.’ It’s amazing to see the impact caring for the environment can have and the social and economic benefits that environmental policies can bring.
Materials
2°EAST specifically use Miyota quartz movements, as their strong environmental policy and goals align with how they wish their watches to be designed throughout their supply chains.
They specifically invest in Zero Waste Ion plating, which is 10X thicker and more durable than conventional plating. The processes involved in this ‘eliminate air emissions, wastewater and hazardous wastes associated with traditional plating techniques.’
Many keen environmentalists might not be keen on the use of leather for environmental and ethical reasons. 2°EAST use full-grain leather for their products, which is highly strong and durable. This means their products will have a longer life span than other types of leather used by brands. This supports the concept of slow fashion making pieces last longer and therefore fewer resources are used as there’s less of a need to buy new products to replace the old.
They use vegetable tanning to replace harsh synthetic chemicals that are typically used when tanning leather that has a wide variety of environemntal issues attached to their disposal. Whereas, 2°EAST relies on biodegrading vegetable tanning alternatives
They also use eco-friendly packaging with all materials being recycled cardboard and minimal sizing to further reduce their consumption of needless resources.
Commitment to Ethics and Responsibility
One final thing about 2°EAST that I loved on their website was their transparent commitment, covering a wide variety of social and environmental responsibilities outlining that their supply chains have agreed to :
- Employment is freely chosen
- Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are respected
- Working conditions are safe and hygienic
- Child labour shall not be used
- Living wages are paid
- Working hours are not excessive
- No discrimination is practised
- Regular employment is provided
- No harsh or inhumane treatment is allowed
The commitment goes into further detail regarding what terms and conditions these include. View their commitment in more detail here, if you are interested.
I thought this was clear and transparent as this has given me and I’m sure many more people faith in the brands’ transparency and authenticity in their belief of the millions to be a socially and environmentally responsible company.
Conclusion
Here are five amazing sustainable watch brands that are all clear on the mark they want to leave on the world by having high social and environmental standards for themselves, leading the way in making the world a better place one watch at a time.
I love writing articles like this because it shows what companies can do with strong social and environemntal policies.
Consumerism doesn’t have to be only profit-driven, it can also contribute to bettering the world through offsetting emissions and giving back to those in need.
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