How Wrist Watches Are Helping Save the Planet

Being environmentally conscious is a good thing and maybe watches are helping to save our planet.

In today’s throw-away society, and our relentless pursuit of the next upgrade, it is quite sobering to realise that a watch that lasts decades is achieving the resource neutrality that we are frantically chasing in so many aspects of our lives.

In fact watches, particularly mechanical ones, have been doing that all along. It is a little ironic that the current push for save the ocean use of recycled plastic in many watches (packaging, watch bands, and even watch cases) has blinkered us to the essentially resource saving nature of our humble wrist timekeepers.

Watches do of course use resources. The manufacturing process in every watch uses energy, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, glass, and other raw materials. But the big plus is that they amortise those resources over much longer periods than many of our other day to day tools. 

Mobile phones are considered to have a life of 2-3 years - smart watches a little longer at 3-4 years. Those times can be extended if you replace waning batteries but the emphasis is certainly on purchasing a brand new product within half a decade and throwing the old one away. 

Quality watches on the other hand can last a lifetime. And, no, that doesn’t mean the life of the watch itself (which was how one of my cheeky uncles used to describe lifetime guarantees). A high quality mechanical watch can be serviced over 200-300 years. Quartz watches are manufactured in various qualities including “cheap & nasty” but I own a few 45 year + remarkably accurate quartz watches and there are many high quality quartz movements being made today that will rewrite expectations on the longevity of electronic circuits.

We should talk about batteries because they are certainly a consumable in the modern idiom. Watch batteries can last anything from 2-10 years, the batteries associated with solar power batteries maybe even longer. And on that point, can you be more environmentally conscious than using the sun to power your timekeeping? Actually, come to think of it, a mechanical watch, particularly an automatic one powered by the natural movement of your wrist is probably at the top of the sustainability tree. 

Let’s be honest - I am a watch collector, some would say a watch nerd, and justifying my obsession with horology is a regular activity. But when our watch forefathers decided to make longevity a key ingredient in watch making they were setting a standard that has particular relevance in 2021. Well done to them!

By Greg Smith

15/12/2021

Note: The watch shown in our lead photo is a Seiko 7006 automatic mechanical watch from the 1970's. It is running just fine in 2021.