Essilor expanded its culture of global innovation through the gradual integration of sustainable development criteria in order to respond to both its consumer and customer expectations. Committed to reducing the Group’s environmental footprint and improving its social impact, this Earth Day, Essilor is pleased to share an update on its recently developed proprietary Sustainability Assessment Methodology (S.A.M.), within its R&D activities.

S.A.M. has been designed for evaluating R&D projects using sustainability criteria at each stage of the development process for technologies and products. Circularity, resource and process efficiency along with low impact raw materials and societal benefits form the main pillars of this assessment methodology.

Over the last few months, S.A.M was rolled out globally within R&D.

Xavier Galliot, Essilor’s Group Chief Sustainability Officer commented: “Assessing the sustainability performance of our product and technology innovation process from the very beginning is essential if we are to contribute dynamically to a circular economy. Along with other initiatives derived from the ‘Positive Products’ program, S.A.M. will help to enhance a more sustainable offering and differentiate Essilor, as a global industry leader.”

S.A.M. comes under a specific Essilor program called ‘Positive Products’ which aims to embed sustainability within product development and customer experience at large. Set up in 2017, this initiative sets out to be a sharing platform between different functions and business units while launching new initiatives in line with the Group’s global sustainability agenda. It is structured around different topics, including: designing more sustainable products (S.A.M., Life Cycle Analysis, Recycling scheme), engaging brands (ReShape frames collection) and working collectively with the Group’s Supplier Sustainability program. Beyond the deployment of S.A.M, Essilor has also reached some other key milestones related to reducing raw materials loss and applying policies to recover residual parts as well as scraps during production activities and processes.