What Makes Rolex Great? Part - II
8 min read
Part Two - A Responsible Company
For Rolex, sustainability is integral to its decisions and actions.
Not many companies have Rolex’s level of control and supervision on production processes from start to finish. With bare minimum of outsourcing, arguably the least in the watchmaking industry as the company maintains 97% control over its manufacturing processes, Rolex takes responsibility at every stage, from design to delivery.
With a brand appointed governance body - the Impact and Sustainability Department, to ensure the implementation and management of its sustainability initiatives, Rolex is very comprehensive in addressing ethical, social and environmental challenges.
Here, again, its integrated business model, complemented by vertically integrated production provides greater scope to manage Rolex’s environmental impact.
Innovating for sustainability
The strategy of sustainability at Rolex is a twofold initiative: the first is defined by a mission to design watches built to last, and the second is based on the company’s commitment to conducting its activities responsibly. The latter is divided into three pillars, defined by transparent commitments towards ethics, responsible employer, and the environment.
Rolex is perpetually innovating for sustainability. With over 700 patents to its name, Rolex has always placed innovation at the heart of its development. For the brand, this innovation is a key driver of sustainability.
Rolex is currently testing an innovative process of “short-loop metal circularity” which reduces CO2e emissions by 60% compared to the whole of the traditional remelting and rolling process. This process will also make possible significant material use reduction.
Rolex has already developed an innovative micro-milling concept for machining dial plates which aims to make significant gains in terms of electricity consumption, as well as in usable oil volume, mass and required floor space. Since 2025, it has reduced electricity consumption by 65% per part manufactured.
Circular economy
For Rolex, its strategy of circular economy is aimed at reducing waste, consumption and the squandering of raw materials, water and energy. By reuse, repair and reinvention of products and equipment, it also helps to limit environmental impacts. The brand’s gold recycling process is a key advantage in this initiative. Its little-known “circular gold” system turns gold recycling into a significant competitive edge. As per Rolex, “For us, every gram of gold recovered is one less gram of gold that needs to be mined.”
Via its unique model for gold, Rolex can trace 99% of all gold it uses in its production. Rolex’s gold model is based on the most efficient possible management of this precious material throughout the various industrial processes. Impressively, 91% of all gold Rolex uses for manufacturing its watches is recycled, only 9% is mined gold. Of that 91% of the recycled gold, most of the supply comes from its internal processes. Very little is sourced from the external watchmaking and electronics sectors.
According to Rolex, “Thanks to our exceptional control over material wastage during the manufacture of our gold parts - with a wastage rate close to zero - we have a business model that is unique in the industry.”
The internal gold waste reintroduced into production is recovered from several sources:
- Scrap: Gold alloy offcuts from stamping and machining operations which are easily reusable.
- Metal filings: Gold alloy residues mixed with oil generated during machining. The segregated machine oils are also treated twice so that even the smallest gold particles can be recovered.
- Dust: Gold particles found in cleaning cloths, machine filters or abrasive belts used for polishing.
- Sludge from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs): Residue from wastewater treatment containing gold in particle form.
This extreme exercise of gold recovery, with a greater than 99.9% recovery rate, is a vital economic factor as typically a gold watch case is machined from a solid bar weighing up to five times the finished product. At Rolex, a team of around forty people work to optimize gold recovery using dedicated IT tools.
This unique model applies to recycled steel as well.
For the production of Oystersteel, the brand primarily uses recycled steel. Rolex achieves a 99.6% recycling rate of Oystersteel waste from its internal production flows which is reintroduced into the manufacturing processes. On average, 75% of the volume of cast metal used is composed of recycled waste. Of the remaining volume, 10% of the cast metal comes from scrap re-melted by the supplier. Finally, the remaining 15% is not recycled metal but primary ferroalloys containing a high concentration of the elements that make up Oystersteel (nickel, chromium, molybdenum), which are added in varying proportions to obtain the final steel of the desired grade (904 L).
Likewise, Rolex is able to trace the entire life cycle of every material it uses, from its source to its final use. Rolex maps its flows by gathering information on its suppliers and their own supply chains. In total, 2,818 suppliers had signed Rolex’s Sustainable Development Charter by 2025. It also conducts regular audits to assess its suppliers’ compliance with human rights standards. Impressively, Rolex can trace the origin of 100% of the rough diamond supply it receives.
Governance and sustainability initiatives
At Rolex alone, a total of 150 internal sustainability projects are in action. Conscious of its environmental and social impact, the company has created a whistleblowing system enabling anyone to report environmental protection violations alongside other concerning situations.
Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative supports conservation across vast areas of Earth.
Till 2025, Through this initiative, the brand has contributed to exploration and conservation projects in 65 countries. It has also developed 31 partnerships, including two new ones in 2025, supported or equipped 163 expeditions and helped protect 143 species. Since the launch of the initiative, Rolex has supported 13 Perpetual Planet Testimonees. The brand has already helped plant 254,798 corals and 50,224,000 trees, and to protect, explore and monitor 58,155,166 km2 of natural spaces. A total of 399 scientists and explorers have been supported by the Perpetual Planet Initiative and the Rolex Awards for Enterprise.
A responsible approach to counter climate change
In 2025, Rolex’s total carbon footprint was 891 ktCO₂e, 98.6% of which was attributed to the procurement of precious materials (gold, platinum, palladium and silver). Over a period of four years, this footprint has been reduced by 72%.
At 10.3 ktCO₂e, Rolex’s direct emissions from Swiss production sites represent just 1.2% of the brand’s total carbon footprint. Its indirect emissions, significantly associated to foreign affiliates (72% compared to 28% for Swiss industrial facilities), are responsible for a carbon footprint of 2.1 ktCO₂e, i.e. 0.2% of the total. However, in 2025, foreign affiliates made serious efforts to reduce emissions, which played an important role in reducing emissions by 79% compared to 2023.
Impressively, Rolex’s gold-related emissions, which usually have the most impact (51%), were 82% lower in 2025 than in 2021. Based on 2021 levels, Rolex’s 2030 targets for reducing absolute emissions are as follows:
Scopes 1 (direct emissions) and 2 (indirect emissions): −42% and Scope 3 (emissions due to procurement of precious materials): −25%.
Rolex also optimizes its water usage and enforces strict measures to avoid waste and prevent the risk of pollution. With a total volume of 981,610 m3 of water withdrawn in 2025, Rolex is on track to reduce its annual water consumption by approximately 5% by 2027. With over 2,000 chemical deliveries per year to its production sites, Rolex continues to optimize its loading bays to prevent water pollution risks in events of accidental spills.
The company also aims to limit direct emission of atmospheric pollutants causing air pollution and aims to halve its volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions by 2030 compared to 2021, with an intermediate step of a 25% decrease by 2027. Rolex is perpetually invested in optimizing its air treatment systems to be able to reduce emissions by at least 50% compared to the maximum permitted emissions.
Rolex pays particular attention to the internal sorting of its waste and its traceability within disposal channels. In 2025, the recycling rate for non-hazardous industrial waste (NHW) was 50%. Rolex aims to increase this rate to 70% by 2030. In terms of special waste, the objective is to reduce its volume by 20% by 2030.
Managing energy consumption
Despite its limited impact on the company’s total carbon footprint, Rolex’s energy consumption in Switzerland is actively managed across its industrial and administrative sites. The brand aims to completely phase out fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, by 2030. Rolex has not used heating oil at its production sites since the 2000s.
By 2020, in Geneva CO2 emissions from gas and oil heating had already been reduced by 50%. As a result of a total of 80 concrete actions, the reduction increased to 63% in 2024. Rolex has also improved its energy efficiency. In the past ten years, in Geneva it has saved 27 GWh of electricity, equivalent to the annual consumption of 9,000 households.
Similarly, in Bienne, in a space of nine years, heating emissions have fallen by 96.5%. Via implementation of a total of 130 measures, Rolex has achieved cumulative energy savings of 31 GWh, equivalent to the annual consumption of 10,330 households.
Since 2024, Rolex’s three Geneva sites have earned the BREEAM In-Use distinction which is based on 170 criteria across nine themes. The Bienne site earned the same certification in 2025. This accounts to 71% of total premises owned or co-owned by Rolex being BREEAM In-Use certified. By 2029, Rolex will open a new site in Bulle which is aiming for an Outstanding classification, the highest level of BREEAM certification. This will make it the first industrial building of its kind in Switzerland to receive such a distinction.
At its sites in Switzerland, the proportion of renewable energy is at a staggering 87.7%.
With the fate of the planet inextricably linked to our own, the measurable sustainability initiatives by Rolex are imperative not only for their impact but also as a blueprint for companies to adopt. One more reason why Rolex is great.
Click here for Part-I.
