A pandemic pause driving change, for good

Covid has changed the way Bellinger House does business “big time”, said Lilleoer. “It gave us time. It gave us the possibility to unplug. Of course, financially it’s very bad to unplug, but when you’re working every day, very hard, it’s difficult to be creative, to come up with new ideas; you need space, you need capacity.”

Bellinger House took this time to review its brands, bringing back the colour and fashion stance that made Bellinger frames such a success in the first place. But the biggest change was in the company’s philosophy and practices, said Lilleoer. “When Covid hit, there were two things you could do: you could sit down and stick your finger in your belly button and say, ‘I can’t do anything’, or you could say, ‘We’re going to survive this’. But what kind of world are we going to wake up to? What can we do besides make some nice designs?”

Creating a socially positive impact, globally

The time for talk was over, action was needed, said Lilleoer. He contacted the US head office of the non-political, non-religious humanitarian organisation Rotary International. Covid made him realise we have to stand together, he said. “The world has changed. Everybody talks about corporate social responsibility, but a lot of the time all they have is a strategy in a drawer. I got in contact with Rotary because I knew they are always looking for frames when they travel abroad, and I said, ‘What if I take that responsibility from your shoulders?’”

Ten or so Zoom meetings later, Bellinger House Community was born. In a nutshell, in return for an optical practice becoming a stockist, Bellinger will buy back the same number of old-stock frames the customer buys from the company, or from one of its distributors (Euro Optics a division of VMD in New Zealand). Bellinger then packages them up and sends them directly to Rotary. “We don’t care about price, brand, whatever. The only frames we cannot take are rimless because they are impossible for Rotary to add lenses to in Africa,” said Lilleoer. The practices then become part of the Bellinger House Community and Rotary partnership and can use this in their own social media marketing, he said.

But Lilleoer and the Bellinger board didn’t stop there. Nicknamed ‘Operation greenheart’, the company also launched Bellinger House Circle to counter what Lilleoer called some of the “shit” practices that abound in the eyewear design and production world. The company has reviewed and is in the process of changing all its practices from top-to-bottom, he said, to ensure it’s delivering products as sustainably as possible. Frame cases are now 100% aluminium, so they can be recycled; plastic delivery bags have been replaced with plant-based bags, which can be composted; and from 1 January 2023 all of Bellinger House’s frames’ demo lenses will be made of the same plant-based, compostable material.

“Frames will never be completely green; it’s a fashion-based business,” he said. “But everything we can do, we will do.” That includes incorporating other people’s great sustainable ideas, like the coffee-bean-shell stools and the beer-keg tables, into the firm’s workspaces and show stands. Lilleoer is also investigating how the acetate from old frames can be recycled and reused to make a completely new material that others can then use to make, well, anything, he said. “It’s a circular economy, a journey, and we’re only at the start of it.”

Taking a transparent stance to benefit society

Another eyewear firm spurred on to change by Covid is Vanni. While other Italian companies tried to survive the onslaught Covid brought, Vanni’s husband-and-wife founders, Giovanni Vitaloni and Alessandra Girardi decided to transform their company into a ‘Società Benefit’ at the height of the pandemic. Società Benefit is a relatively new legal status for companies in Italy, which combines the goal of profit with creating a positive impact for society and the environment in a fully transparent, responsible and sustainable way.

“It was so much more work to do,” admitted Girardi at Silmo 2022. “But we wanted to formalise what we were doing, to measure it and be really transparent. It’s a path, but it’s not easy.” It’s about pursing a common good, she said, and being able to prove that you are doing what you say you are doing, legally.

Girardi has little time for the greenwashing that now abounds within the eyewear industry as everyone tries to claim a ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ moniker. “We are not green all of a sudden, we are a Società Benefit. That means we measure our impacts, you can see them, we are not just talking.”

This applies to the amount of waste the company produces – constantly being reduced through the clever use of leftover frame acetate, for example, to produce spectacle-hanging necklaces – to ensuring everything Vanni produces is 100% Italian, from the frame screw to the temple tip. “If you ask me where I make my glasses, I can take you tomorrow. Everything comes from within our area.” The factories and suppliers Vanni use are all grilled on their sustainability and societal credentials, said Girardi, from where their electricity comes from to their treatment of employees. It’s not easy to get the information and to get it down on paper, she said, which is why you shouldn’t trust someone who tells you they’ve suddenly become green. “It takes a long time and there is a cost.”

To see if her customers will bear this cost and to educate them about the true meaning of sustainability and pursuing a path of social good, Girardi and her team have been canvassing opinions at this year’s big optical fairs. So far, the responses have been positive, she said. “It’s like a movement we’re trying to build. It’s complicated, but you know you have to change and we are all so behind on this. At the end of the day, it’s about taking responsibility for what you do. We have four kids and I want them to be proud of what we do. And it’s a good model for business.”

Building stronger business ties, understanding to drive change

Another firm which used the breathing space afforded by lockdowns to develop new ways to improve product sustainability is Lafont. “Covid gave us an opportunity, to really think what we can do better and how we can do it,” said Lafont marketer Tamara Grozdoff. This included developing a new process to reuse the firm’s leftover acetate to make a new, colourful acetate plate, which Lafont used to produce a range of limited-edition ‘upcycled’ frames, she said. The aim is to produce a new, truly ‘responsible’ collection next year, mirroring the company’s children’s range, which is now all made from recycled acetate, then pushing that knowhow out throughout the company’s operations, she said.

Already doing the sustainable thing – a claim borne out by winning the UK optical industry’s inaugural award for sustainability – is British eyewear designer Eyespace. The company’s export director Ryan James said Covid also changed many practical things about the way it did business. “We became masters of Zoom and found our export team actually thrived during lockdown as we were able to do video demonstrations and send out sample packs.”

In a way, it was a really exciting time, said Eyespace’s marketing manager Nick Wiltshire, who was actually hired in the middle of the pandemic. “The problems we faced, like everyone, were formidable and, yes, we missed face-to-face contact, everyone did, but we overcame the challenges and carried on functioning. We actually learnt to thrive on digital.”

It also made the company more efficient, said James, so the time now spent face-to-face with customers is more valuable as they are more familiar with the company’s brands and ranges. “We’ve got stronger relationships and have a better understanding of what our customers need, as well as better ways of working. So we think we are actually stronger than we were before.”

Vanni’s Giovanni Vitaloni agreed the Covid troubles actually strengthened its relationships with customers. “They’ve become much deeper, so everything you do is much more under a magnifying glass.” That is good, he said, because that means your business partners care more about what you are doing and what you stand for, which also helps bring about the sort of changes the world so desperately needs.