In the last article, we saw how the green in clockwork makes little sense in terms of marketing and on that of the production. Here we analyze two other aspects, that of environmental tourism and that ethical, and draw our own conclusions.
Green in watchmaking: does it make environmental sense?
The mechanical watch is by its nature a non-polluting product. It is not thrown away a mechanical watch, it can be repaired. It doesn't end up in landfills, and even if this happens, due to the inconvenience in repairing it - but thanks to producers like Seiko e East, who manage to make a new watch cost as or less than a revision, which has an incompressible cost - it would not be the end of the world: the watch can be to recycle. A timepiece is made of metal and synthetic corundum, also called glass sapphire; the first melts, the second is minced and becomes an industrial abrasive. Even the plexi glass lately it is recycled, albeit with difficulties linked to costs. Mineral glass is only chemically treated normal glass, therefore it can be recycled an indefinite number of times - as long as this makes economic sense, being the silicon the most abundant element on Earth, but that's another matter -.
The green in watchmaking: does it make ethical sense?
Using recycled or ethically extracted raw materials has little impact on the whole system of extraction and transformation of resources. Let's take a concrete example. rolex, which is one great watchmaking house - among the largest in the world - produces less than a million watches every year. Assuming they weigh about one and a half pounds each, we are talking about 150 tons of metal per year. Equal to the weight of a hundred midsize SUVs.
In other words, a car manufacturer like Volkswagen uses more than ten times the metal used by Rolex in one year of watchmaking production. We are not talking about houses with smaller numbers, albeit of great quality, such as Patek Philippe… And the automotive industry is only a small part of metal consumption in the Western economy: we could talk about the construction sector, the mining sector…. In short, it is true that the sea is made of drops, but the drop of the watchmaking industry is very small, in the great ocean of raw materials.
So why green in watchmaking?
The first reason behind the choices of a company should be the economic one, but, since today the West has subordinated its economy to the financial sector, it is quite natural that the choices of large groups follow a logic that is not so much profit. , how much of financial attractiveness.
In other words, the largest speculative investors in the world, Black Rock in the lead, have indicated the green as the way forward in the future. In the absence of a political counterpart - the deregulation has ensured that political decision-makers, also in the West, weigh very little in the economy - the way is drawn: who wants to continue to receive financial coverage and to have success in the stock exchanges, must makeenvironmental sustainability a central part of its product and service offering.
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