Officine Panerai is still making its mark on the watch industry with the launch of its Luminor Marina eSteel, and its concept timepiece, the Subsmersible eLAB-ID. This topic appeared in “Short Supply Routes“, a Special Edition of the Swiss watchmaking magazine JSH.
By Joël A. Grandjean / JSH® Magazine & Swiss Watch Passport’s Publisher & Editor in Chief
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On Thursday 29 September 2022, he was one of the speakers at the Congress of the SSC, the prestigious and active Swiss Chronometric Society.
With 98.6% of its weight in recycled materials, this watch is a model of sustainable watchmaking”
The brand, known for its links with the underwater world, is forging strong ties with its aficionados and taking them to sublime and mysterious territories to explore. In addition to its visuals, which evoke the great escape to the vast natural expanses of adventure, the preservation of the seabed and virgin exploration, Officine Panerai is contributing to the development of ethical watchmaking.
Sustainable arguments
Why on earth did they choose to base it on weight? “Calculating this percentage by value and not by weight would have no connection with the environment. Weight was the most objective, because you can weigh everything and determine a recycling rate,” explains the man who has spent more than 25 years in the watchmaking industry.
“In terms of recycling, we aim for the maximum number of elements, luminova, glass, etc. For sapphire glass alone, it took us 6-8 months of research: ice, purity of the cores (editor’s note: long silica bar)”. Jérôme Cavadini is convincing when he details, for the watch crystal alone, all the recycling processes that had to be mastered. From the initial scraps of material, the reworking and shaping to be able to make watch glasses: “breaking our teeth on the impurities, finding properties similar to the raw material, mastering the cutting…”
Assuming that everything has been weighed, including the strap, the buckle, the crystal and the hands, it seems obvious that the initial roadmap, and therefore the wishes of the ebullient CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué, should aim for 100%? “Obviously, a boss has optimal expectations! In theory we could achieve this. But that would involve crazy energy consumption and waste of resources, which would make the objective meaningless and damage the very nature of the project.”
The coherence argument was therefore favoured. Like the choice of EcoTitanium, a clean metal made from titanium scraps from the aerospace industry and the recovery of its scraps… Like the very trendy posture, which consists of playing the game of total transparency and exposing the virtuous circle of all the suppliers – the co-contractors, as I use to rename them – who participated in the adventure..
