Environmental sustainability has become a key factor in retail and consumer behaviour, with 82% of shoppers saying they want brands to embrace sustainable practices. Despite this, people put buying green in the too hard basket – with 35% saying they don’t purchase due to a lack of information, a lack of sustainable alternatives or the time and effort required to find them.
This is particularly true when it comes to the eyewear industry. Most sunglasses are made from petroleum-based virgin plastics that take upwards of 450 years to decompose. Because of this this, some manufacturers are trying to remedy the situation, with more sustainable materials and processes.
But venture into your local optical shop and it's next to impossible to get a sense of which frames, lenses and cases are least and most damaging to the environment. And when eyewear manufacturers do talk sustainability, there’s no industry-wide standard to refer to.