Watchmakers are leading the green charge

There is a timepiece I aspire to own — a self-winding mechanical watch with a perpetual calendar with a time reserve of more than 500 years. Being mechanical, it requires no mercury-leaking batteries and is able to keep the correct date for up to five centuries. It’s a pretty good deal, considering the hefty price tag on the watch.

As a product, any mechanical timepiece is a model of sustainability. Given the proper care, be it manual-winding or self-winding, a mechanical timepiece can run for generations on kinetic energy created by the simple laws of physics.

A few years ago, there were questions of sustainability in the production of such watches, what with many watchmakers outsourcing the production of small components to countries with not-so-strict environmental standards, the use of hydrocarbon lubricants and the use of unsustainably mined precious metals and stones. However, the past few years have seen watchmakers embracing the green movement, upping its R&D to develop sophisticated timepieces that don’t require lubricants, converting their plants, improving their production chain (management of energy and waste), getting involved in environmental initiatives globally and so on.

Since 2002, IWC in Schaffhausen has been slowly incorporating sustainable practices into its manufacturing and production chain. It started with minimising energy consumption through high-insulation cladding and the use of heat pumps and heat exchanger, which extracts heat from the town’s wastewater system. It also funded a wind-energy project in China, partially offsetting its CO² emissions. On top of that, it helps calculate the personal carbon footprint of employees and then offsets that by contributing money to a climate project. The watchmaker was certified carbon-neutral more than two years ago.

When Audemars Piguet decided to open a new factory in Le Brassus, it ensured that the new facility would adhere to the codes of sustainability. The new structure integrates seamlessly with the village and its landscape, and is equipped with a wood-fired heating plant, where the interior is decked in water-based paints and FSC-certified floors. The watchmaker also helped in returning the stream that runs through Le Brassus to its original bed, all in all making it the first industrial plant to receive the Minergie-Eco label — a certification for new and refurbished buildings that ensure a high level of comfort for its occupants with low energy consumption.

Jaeger-LeCoultre has also earned itself a Minergie certificate, with its upgraded facilities that was done in conjunction with the expansion of its manufactory in the Vallée de Joux, just outside the village of Le Sentier. The new building was designed to include things like an energy recovery system, with solar panels that will provide all the hot water and is powered by a supply of electricity produced by a renewable hydraulic energy system. Extending its green initiatives further, Jaeger-LeCoultre also created two bus routes to transport staff between work and home, and continues to promote carpooling.

Another legendary watchmaking name, Rolex, has also upgraded its facility in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, installing rooftop gardens designed to capture rainwater and glass façades to maximise penetration of natural light.

It’s not just the big names in watchmaking that are hopping onto the bandwagon. Smaller, independent watchmakers are also getting into the game. For instance, Wyler Genéve introduced the industry’s first carbon neutral watch — a GMT model certified by the CarbonNeutral Company based in London which also helps the watchmaker manage two carbon-offsetting programmes: a reforestation programme in the Brittany region of France and a methane capture project at a derelict coal mine in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Wyler Genéve continues to buy its components from outside and therefore cannot certify all of its watches as carbon neutral as it has no control over the production methods of its suppliers.

TAG Heuer also went green when it revamped its headquarters to be ecologically efficient with energy-saving architecture.

The green movement hasn’t just remained in the arena of fine mechanical watches. Manufacturers of quartz watches in Switzerland and Japan have developed two types of quartz watches with minimal impact on the environment — watches powered by light as well as those powered by motion. Light-powered quartzes use a tiny cell in the dial to convert light into electricity that goes into a capacitor or rechargeable battery. The leader in this innovation is Citizen with its Eco-Drive timepieces. According to a report by JCK online, the Eco-Drive timepiece has “prevented the need for, and subsequent disposal of, over 10 million watch batteries in North America in the past decade”, says Citizen Watch of America president Laurence R Grunstein.

The other quartz type is powered kinetically. Called mechanical/electronic watches (or sometimes auto-quartz), these watches contain a tiny self-winding rotor that spins when the wrist moves thereby generating electricity that goes into a capacitor. Seiko is the leader in this sector with its Kinetic range — one of five watch products by Seiko certified by the Japan Environment Association.

Timex, one of the biggest watch brands in the US, has used recycling materials for its packaging for decades and has always insisted on mercury-free batteries. Mondaine, since the early 1990s, was actually the first manufacturer to produce watch cases from post-consumer recycled metal and was awarded the international ecological Oko award at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1993. Mondaine also provides financial incentives to drive less or use green alternatives.

It does seem as if watchmakers are leading the green charge. And while there are still kinks to work out, in that there’s still the question of the procurement of raw materials (are they attained in a sustainable manner?) and the outsourced production of components, it’s a comfort to see that the industry as a whole has a good head start over most industries these days.

Making lamb chops a lesser evil
A lot of environmentalists are giving up meat as part of their commitment to the planet. This is because it was discovered that each time an animal releases gas (from the front or rear end), methane is released into the atmosphere. Bunch these animals together in, say, a farm and it all adds up to a whole lot of methane, contributing to global warming.

Currently, the agriculture sector is second to industry in terms of greenhouse gas production, a bulk of which comes from Australia’s livestock, so now scientists Down Under are working to figure out a way to reduce emissions from sheep. Research is currently being carried out by the Sheep Cooperative Research Centre, which hopes to better understand the mechanics and the effects of sheep’s burp output. If all goes well and these scientists are able to isolate the burps and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a significant percentage, they might move onto cows next. But why stick to burps? The other point of emission should be looked into as well, should it not?
Australians must love their lamb enough to want to pursue such a mission.

Another reason to love trees
Just when you figured that trees offer more than enough use to the human race — like stationery, timber for shelter and furniture, food, CO² filtering services and so on — it’s recently been discovered that it can be used to make synthetic bone that is able to fuse with natural bone in the body.

That’s right — scientists at the Instituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dei materiali Ceramici (ISTEC) based in Faenza, Italy, have developed a method of turning rattan wood into a chalky substance that, once introduced into the body as a transplant material, is able to fuse with natural bone. It is made through a process that requires cut pieces of tubular rattan wood to be fused with phosphate and calcium in a complex chemical process. After being heated in a furnace, it is further heated in another oven-like machine. The result is a material that is nearly identical to human bone, even when viewed with a microscope. Apparently, this “bone” also has small pores similar to natural bone, that is able to support the penetration of blood and the migration of nerves from surrounding bone.

Anna Tampieri, the head of the research team, says the new bone material is strong, “so it can take heavy loads that bodies put on it. It is also durable, so, unlike existing bone substitutes, it won’t need replacing”.

Right now the material continues to be studied in sheep’s legs. So far, it has shown nothing but success in that particles from the sheep’s own bones are migrating to rattan-based bone and sheep are showing no signs of infection or rejection of the matter.

Of course, it’ll be another five years until we see it ready to be introduced into human beings.

This article appeared in Options, the lifestyle pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 790, Jan 25 – 31, 2010