Is 2021 The Year Watchmaking Truly Goes Green?

Twenty twenty-one has been the year of the green watch, and not just in dial colors ranging from lime to pine. While the young year has for sure yielded a heaping helping of green dials , it's also marked what looks like a pivotal movement for sustainability in the watch industry. Mechanical watches are inherently sustainable objects, intended to last decades or longer and even outlive their original owners.Taking the concept one step further, watchmakers are looking to integrate sustainable manufacturing methods where they can, using technologies and practices ranging from solar energy to recycling. It isn't always easy being green, as a famous frog once said. For an industry steeped in luxury and permanence, rummaging in the recycling bin to build new products might not always seem quite on brand. But times and consumer tastes are changing. This Earth Day, let's take a look at some of the sustainable watchmaking products that launched in 2021. Cartier SolarBeat Tank Must If you really must make a watch with quartz, why not power it with the sun? Cartier's new SolarBeat Tank Must does just that, packing cool green tech into a design that's about as classic as any shaped watch could possibly be. While mechanical watches are of course inherently green, getting their energy from a turn of the crown or a flick of the wrist, quartz has long relied on disposable batteries to get the job done. With SolarBeat, Cartier delivers the accuracy and value consumers tend to expect from quartz while providing a compelling green approach to the end product. In keeping with the theme of sustainability, the Cartier straps you see here have been manufactured using scraps of apples grown for the food industry. The Cartier Tank Must SolarBeat, $2,480 (small), $2,610 (large) Panerai Submersible eLAB-ID And Luminor Marina eSteel The Panerai Submersible eLAB-ID Panerai made sustainability its main focus at Watches & Wonders, debuting a 30-piece limited-edition concept watch in the Submersible line with 98.6 percent recycled-based materials. Along with the new Submersible concept, the most recycled timepiece we've seen to date, Panerai also published its list of suppliers and the specific contributions of each company to the final product you see here. This intentional open-sourcing of the product is an invitation for other watchmakers to do likewise and up their sustainability game. The impact of just one model from one – albeit popular and high-profile – luxury watchmaker can only go so far, after all. The Panerai Luminor Marina eSteel. On the commercial side of things, Panerai debuted a new alloy, eSteel, that allows it to make recycled-based watches for commercial release. The Luminor Marina eSteel, available this October, may not use 98.6% recycled-based materials by weight (89 grams of its components use recycled based materials, accounting for 58.4% of the total weight), but it demonstrates that circular manufacturing is viable at a larger scale for luxury watchmakers. The Panerai Submersible eLAB-ID, limited to 30 pieces and available in 2022: $60,000; the Panerai Luminor Marina eSteel, $8,700. Swatch BioCeramic Big Bold Next The Swatch watch, launchd in 1983, went a long way toward demonstrating that quartz, plastic, and Swiss manufacturing could not only co-exist but thrive. Crafting watches with familiar methods wasn't the mindset that put Swatch on the map, and it's not how the brand has operated over the last 38 years. Recently, Swatch has looked to make watches from bio-derived materials. With the BioCeramic, launched as a capsule collection a couple of weeks ago, Swatch has made a watch of mixed ceramic (⅔) and bio-derived plastic (⅓). The plastic portion is made using the seeds of the castor plant. Available in simple black and white as well as blue, pink and grey, each will set you back $125. It’s proof that sustainability doesn't have to cost lots of money. Bioceramic Big Bold Next: $125 IWC TimberTex Straps Shortly before Watches & Wonders, IWC announced a line of sustainable straps made from a paper-based material called TimberTex. Composed of 80% natural plant fibers and handmade with natural dyes in Italy, TimberTex straps can be added to select IWC Portugieser and Portofino models. IWC began looking into high-quality alternatives for leather-based straps in 2018, with the goal of finding a material that was both vegan and green. The cellulose in the straps comes from managed forests or tree farms, and the stitching and lining from recycled materials. Perhaps most interesting, the TimberTex straps are water resistant. Water resistance isn't something that can be claimed for your run of the mill leather strap. Score one for sustainability. IWC's TimberTex straps are offered in blue, brown and black. IWC TimberTex Straps $175. Skagen Aaren Naturals Just in time for Earth Day, we've got a new collection of watches in Skagen's Aaren Naturals line that feature cases made from at least 50% recycled steel; cork or 100%  recycled paper dials; and straps made of mulberry, apple, cork or cotton backed with LWG nubuck. The straps feature the same construction as Skagen's traditional leather straps, but or the first time, they feature what Skagen refers to as "pro-planet materials." Skagen says that the leather-alternative straps made with cork and apple also include man-made materials. The three-hand, quartz-powered Aaren Naturals watches come in 40 and 36mm sizes. Skagen Aaren Naturals: $125. Bonus: Amagoh Straps From The HODINKEE Shop Earlier today, in honor of Earth Day, the HODINKEE Shop launched its own line of vegan "leather" straps . The Amagoh collection comes in five colors, each named after a U.S. National Park: Kilauea (black), Carlsbad Caverns (dark brown), Mesa Verde (mid-brown, above), Glacier Bay (blue), and Death Valley (reddish clay). The new straps are truly vegan, made entirely of pineapple plant fibers, and 100 percent biodegradable. For the full details on how these cool pineapple straps are made, check out this story in the HODINKEE Shop Journal. Amagoh Straps from the HODINKEE Shop: $110.And no, we're not talking about dial colors.