CaratFifteen tonnes of steel, and a conscience: Oris does the math
Oris mills about 15 tonnes of steel a year — ten cars' worth — so CEO Rolf Studer counts the real footprint in travel and shipping. New packaging cut emissions 50%; the causes run from New York oysters to Yangtze porpoises.
§1Start with an admission.
Ask most watch executives about sustainability and the answer arrives pre-polished. Ask Rolf Studer, who runs one of the last independent brands of scale in Swiss watchmaking, and the answer starts with an admission: Oris consumes roughly 15 tonnes of steel a year — about what the car industry turns into ten vehicles — so the metal is not where its footprint lives. In a WatchPro interview published this past week, Studer located the real emissions in executive travel and logistics, the unglamorous plumbing of a global luxury brand.
§2The unglamorous fixes.
The fixes are correspondingly unglamorous. The company's redesigned packaging — smaller, lighter, fully recyclable — cut the associated emissions by half, the kind of line item that never makes a keynote. "Sustainability means taking responsibility — for our people, our brand, and the environment," Studer said, framing the brand as one that speaks, in his words, at eye level and without pretension.
The causes are chosen for specificity rather than reach. Oris backs the Billion Oyster Project's restoration of New York Harbor — an effort that has drawn in 15,000 students, with each mature oyster filtering hundreds of gallons of water a day by the project's count — alongside a fourth limited edition for the Great Barrier Reef, a partnership with aerial firefighter Coulson Aviation, work on the Yangtze finless porpoise with the Changjiang Conservation Foundation, and a Lou Gehrig edition raising money for ALS research with the New York Yankees.
A brand that discovers the environment only when the topic trends, he suggested, is telling on itself
§3Consistency needs independence.
Studer's sharper point was about timing. A brand that discovers the environment only when the topic trends, he suggested, is telling on itself; Oris has been at the reef and harbor work for years, through cycles when the industry's attention was elsewhere. Independence — no parent group, no safety net, in the brand's own description — is what lets the program stay consistent instead of quarterly.
Green claims age badly when they are marketing, and well when they are line items. Fifteen tonnes, ten cars, half the packaging emissions —
Oris's version of virtue is small, specific and auditable, which is precisely why it is credible.
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