“There’s the classic way of almosen, like you would give to a beggar. “Luxury has always had a component of giving,” Mr. The brand said the proceeds would help, over the next three years, to restore ocean coral to an area totaling the size of 17 football fields. This year two new Carysfort models were introduced: in gold, of which three pieces were auctioned, and a limited collection in steel. And Oris plans to sponsor cleanup days where local volunteers would pick up litter, plastics and other pollutants along the river. A portion of the watch’s sales will help fund the organization’s mission to protect South Korea’s second-longest river, which supplies water to the capital’s 10 million inhabitants. The Hangang watch, for example - 43.5 millimeters, with a striking green dial - is linked to Seoul KFEM, a branch of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements, a nongovernmental agency. That path has been to forge partnerships with nonprofit organizations. “I think it’s just reinforced that we’re on the right path.” “We just keep doing what we’ve been doing,” he said. Studer seems unfazed by the flurry of competing initiatives. Studer, who was named to the shared executive position in 2016 after 10 years at the company.Īs more and more of Oris’s watchmaking counterparts announce projects that include upcycled materials and sustainable packaging, Mr. “For a long time, luxury was dominated by an emotion of ‘Après moi, le déluge’. Sustainability has not always been a focus of the luxury watch industry. Studer and his co-chief executive, Claudine Gertiser-Herzog, does not disclose its sales figures. The company, owned by a small group of shareholders and led by Mr. Oris makes only mechanical watches, priced from $1,500 to $7,500, in men’s and women’s styles. “Our brand has always stood for being responsible for your actions - for being in the middle of normal life,” said Rolf Studer, Oris’s co-chief executive. Another watch supported the conservation in Russia of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, and an Aquis diver model incorporated a special metal made from recycled plastic in an effort to raise awareness of plastics in the oceans. This year, for example, there is the Hangang Limited Edition watch to focus attention on the pollution of the Hangang River in South Korea. Most are linked to water conservation projects and designed around Oris’s best-selling collection of Aquis diving watches (priced at $2,500 to $3,500). Oris, founded in 1904 and named for a brook in the Hölstein region of Switzerland, ensures that a number of the 30 to 50 models it introduces each year are made of upcycled materials or have environmental tie-ins. For one small, independent Swiss watchmaker - a company with only slightly more than 200 employees - sustainability is just part of business as usual.

Oris watch co