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ZEISS FOR EYE CARE PROFESSIONALS

Sustainability
with ZEISS Vision Care 

Responsible action has always been linked to our long-term success. As a company of the Carl Zeiss Foundation, we have been living these values for over 100 years. We work with our teams, worldwide, to preserve resources while providing eye care solutions to help people see better.

To fulfill our responsibility, we focus on three major areas:

  • Resource savings
  • Sustainable product development
  • Social engagement
Sven Hermann, Head of ZEISS Consumer Markets.
Sustainability is essential Sven Hermann Head of ZEISS Consumer Markets

"With our technologies, products and solutions, we have been influencing the lives of people for many years. And we are fully aligned with our sole owner, the Carl Zeiss Foundation, in understanding that sustainability is essential for the future of humankind, of our customers, our company and our employees."

Working together for a better future Dr. Nicole Ziegler Head of Sustainability ZEISS

"The climate crisis and its impact on our planet is very real. ZEISS wants to be part of the solution."

  • Sustainability is essential

    Working together for a better future

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  • Roadmap

    As part of our sustainability strategy, we aim to achieve carbon neutrality in our own operations by 2025. In combination with the goal of switching to green power at our main sites worldwide by 2022, we are contributing to the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming below 2°C.

  • 2022
    2022

    Green power supply in our main sites worldwide.

  • 2025
    2025

    CO2 neutrality on all our own global activities.

Resource savings

We ensure that less water, energy and plastic goes into the production of our eyeglasses and that less CO2 is emitted across the entire value chain – from the manufacture of semi-finished lenses all the way to final delivery.

Within over 250 individual initiatives we strive to better fulfill our responsibility each and every day. We are working hard to achieve sustainable business practices across the entire process.

Less Water

With a save enough water to meet the drinking water needs of 180,000 people for one year.

Less Energy

We save enough energy to provide 3.100 households with electricity for one year.

Less Waste

Our yearly waste reduction is equal to the weight of 2.5 million plastic bags.

Less Paper

Our new eyeglass packaging saves 68 tonnes of paper each year.

Some of our over 250 initiatives

Italy

100% Renewable Energy in Varese1

  

With a mixture of hydro- and biomass power, the site has been meeting its energy needs through 100 percent renewable sources. The amount of the booked renewable electricity would satisfy the electricity needs of about 1.500 Italian families and contribute to avoid more 1.500 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
Mexico
Reuse of Wastewater in Tijuana

Reuse of Wastewater in Tijuana2

  

To counteract water scarcity in specific production regions, the eyeglass lenses plant reuses wastewater from operations processes for uses with lower water quality requirements. This results in an annual avoided water consumption of about 100 m3, the equivalent necessary for satisfying the yearly water drinking needs of 100 people.
Australia
Water savings through new manufacturing process in Tonsley

Water savings through new manufacturing process in Tonsley8

  

With an investment of more than $1 million, production in Tonsley is being converted from wet-edging of lenses to dry-edging with CNC-controlled machines. In this way, no wastewater is produced during the production process.
USA
Turn waste into raw material in Hebron

Turn waste into raw material in Hebron7

  

The plant in Hebron has partnered up with a local business from the automotive industry. The partnership allows reusing the spent alcohol from the lenses production process as a raw material for the manufacturing of new alcohol-based products. Every year about 150 kg of potentially harmful volatile organic compounds can be therefore recycled.
Brazil
Renewable energy procurement in Petrópolis

Renewable energy procurement in Petrópolis6

  

The plant in the Petrópolis site uses renewable hydropower electricity, allowing the avoidance of about 550 t CO2 per year, an amount similar to the CO2-fixed by a wood of 400 trees.
China
Lens production with solar energy in Guangzhou

Lens production with solar energy in Guangzhou5

  

For the production of ophthalmic lenses, the production site uses almost 100 percent solar energy instead of fossil fuels.
China
Recycling Heat in Production Processes in Guangzhou

Recycling Heat in Production Processes in Guangzhou4

  

Renewal of a compressed air system always leads to higher energy efficiencies, but in this case has also triggered the idea in our engineers in Guangzhou to recover the exhaust air generated by reusing it in the warming of our tinting baths: about 90 MWh consumption less, the equivalent of a domestic energy consumption of 30 Chinese families.
India
Rainwater Recycling in Bangalore

Rainwater Recycling in Bangalore3

  

The Bangalore factory collects rainwater on a surface of 1.200 m2 on the factory roof and uses it for lenses production. This way, the avoided consumption of the municipal drinking water, about 690.000 liters a year, is available for the citizens in an area facing water shortage during the drought season.

Sustainable product development

In order to make lens production as sustainable as possible, we continuously scrutinize and improve our production processes. We are developing methods that allow us to manufacture lenses with ever decreasing material input and replace outdated production equipment with energy-efficient devices.

We have managed to significantly reduce the use of resources in the manufacturing of eyeglass lenses of semifinished lenses.

Jesper Wiegandt

Chief Marketing Officer ZEISS Vision Care

We want to move away from the tradition of automation for its own sake, towards a relentless pursuit of optimal parameters that can result in the lowest energy consumption and the lowest volume of waste production.

Not only the volume of materials used is crucial for sustainable development, but also the raw materials themselves. Using a significant number of bio-based materials, we have developed more eco-friendly manufactured sunglasses lenses, offering customers a sustainable choice.

Our goal is to use less water, less energy and reduce the production of waste for all our production processes.

Emanuele Novelli

Sustainability Manager ZEISS Vision Care

Social engagement

As a company owned by a foundation, we are committed to social responsibility. Therefore, acting responsibly is one of our corporate values. Our mission: Clear vision for everybody.

For this purpose, we support various local initiatives that are dedicated to this topic. Many people don’t have access to any form of eye care, especially in rural areas. The main reason is that most developing or poor regions lack the professional and logistical capacity to deliver vision correction.

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    Aloka Vision Programme in India

    The need for affordable yet good quality spectacles in rural and unserved regions of India is massive. The Aloka Vision Programme, initiated and supported by ZEISS, aims to change the landscape of vision care in such areas through entrepreneurial networking, technology, innovation, quality spectacles and raising awareness of the benefits of clear vision.

  • Free lunch fund in China

    Free Lunch Fund in China

    As families in rural China are often too poor to afford lunches, the free lunch fund offers school meals for children. ZEISS joined the project in 2014 and has since then raised around 820.000 free meals for children. Furthermore ZEISS, together with its partners, brings eye and vision care to the partner schools by providing professional eye checks and donating free lenses.

  • Optometry giving sight in Vietnam and Malawi

    Optometry Giving Sight in Vietnam and Malawi

    To prevent blindness and visual impairment caused by uncorrected vision loss and address the debilitating visual impairment problem, Optometry Giving Sight was founded in 2003. With a donation of more than $110.000 ZEISS Vision Care Canada, in collaboration with WestGroupe, has helped fund critical local developments such as an optometry school in Vietnam and the equipment for an optometry programme in Malawi.

    Learn more about Optometry Giving Sight

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  • 1

    Source: for consumption, internal data monitoring for the FY2021; *2021, ISTAT, referred to 2018-2019, Italy.
  • 2

    Source: for consumption, internal data monitoring for the FY2021; *2011, WHO.
  • 3

    Source: for consumption, internal data monitoring for the FY2020; *2011, WHO.
  • 4

    Source: for energy recovery, internal data assessment for the FY2021; *2021, IEA.
  • 5

    Source: https://www.zeiss.com/vision-care/int/about-us/newsroom/topic-hub/sustainability/sustainability-and-economic-success-in-harmony.html.
  • 6

    Source: for consumption, internal data monitoring for the FY2021; *Adapted from EC, 2010, Guidelines implementation land carbon stock.
  • 7

    Source: internal data monitoring for the FY2021.
  • 8

    Source: Going green: sustainability in the optical sector: https://www.insightnews.com.au/going-green-sustainability-in-the-optical-sector/