Chopard to Use Only Recycled Steel in the Manufacture of its Watches
Swiss luxury watch and jewellery maker Chopard said it will now only use recycled steel to manufacture its steel watches, cases and bracelets.
The Geneva headquartered firm with numerous outlets across Asia announced at an industry event that it would put the use of its innovative home-grown 80% recycled steel at the core of production for all of its steel watches.
Trademarked as Lucent Steel, the recycled steel was four years in the making, and is composed of high-quality industrial scraps from Swiss watchmakers as well as high-grade steel from the medical, aerospace and automotive industries.
According to Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Co-President of Chopard, the recycled steel represents a further step in his company’s commitment to a long-term process of responsible sourcing of raw materials that makes the firm’s business possible that began in 2013 with a commitment to sourcing ethical gold, with a 100% target reached in 2018.
“To put things into perspective, we use 25 to 30 tons of steel per year, by using recycled steel and recycling it, no new steel is introduced,” said Scheufele, citing figures from the International Stainless Steel Forum that show that increasing the proportion of recycled steel from 50% to 80% percent would amount to a 30% cut in emissions related to production.
According to a Chopard statement, the use of Lucent Steel considerably improves the resistance and brilliance of its watches, and the material gains in purity with each recycling.
The development of Lucent Steel stems from Chopard’s creation of a local, circular manufacturing loop. All Chopard suppliers for recycled steel are based within 1000km of its manufacturing unit, either in Switzerland or its neighbouring countries of Austria, France, Germany and Italy, reducing the need for transportation emissions.
In addition, the scraps resulting from Chopard’s manufacturing process are collected and recycled into new high-quality steel by its suppliers. This circular process limits the extraction of raw materials without compromising the quality integral to the luxury manufacturer’s production.
Further endorsing its sustainability and social governance commitment, Chopard has become the first luxury house to join Climate Group’s SteelZero initiative in order to work with the industry to speed up the transition to net zero steel.
With regard to gold, the raw material most widely used in Chopard’s production, since 2018 the firm has devoted particular attention to ensuring the gold used in its production was responsibly mined and sourced through transparent and traceable schemes.
Chopard uses only 100% ethically produced gold - verified as having met international best practice environmental and social standards - in its workshops.
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