Eyewear & carbon auditing: Izipizi seeks to better understand its emissions
Izipizi’s co-founders Quentin, Xavier and Charles.
Izipizi is an eyewear company founded in Paris in 2010 by three childhood friends: Quentin Coutrier, Charles Brun and Xavier Aguera. The brand makes sunglasses and reading glasses for adults and children, in a variety of styles and colors. They are
Its designs are beautiful and practical, but what makes the brand stand out is its polycarbonate plastic frames that are very flexible, light, and yet strong. Izipizi is sold in 7,000 stores across 60 countries and has a team of 130 employees.
In this interview, Reframe’s founder Bridget Cogley talks with Coutrier about his desire to make “a product useful to others” and the recent Carbon Audit he did in order to identify areas to improve the environmental impact of the business. Examples are adopting more environmentally-friendly transport, reinventing sales methods, and helping partners reduce their carbon footprint.
BC: Can you tell us a little about yourself, and why you founded Izipizi?
QC: We wanted to create a company together ten years ago. The team was more important than the idea, but what was important to us was to create a product useful to others. That's how we started the IZIPIZI adventure to create glasses that protect the eyes from the sun, from screens, during sports, and that give sight to presbyopes.
“We decided to stop using air transport to save a big part of our carbon emissions. ”
BC: I'm impressed by the carbon audit you just undertook. Carbon emissions are on everyone's mind. How was the process?
QC: We always wanted to do things as well as possible, so it seemed necessary to start by making our carbon footprint, and to think and act concretely.
We were accompanied by a French company specializing in this sector called Utopies. With them, we listed all our travels, our productions, our actions... to calculate our carbon footprint with precision. In our case, we have the advantage of making small products that have a low carbon emission per unit: 2kg of CO2 per glasses (similar to the emissions of one meal).
It also allowed us to understand what we could improve and what we need to act on. In our case, one big thing is the transport between our factories and our warehouses. We decided to stop using air transport to save a big part of our carbon emissions.
BC: How did you find Utopies? Any tips?
QC: We sought guidance from people who specialized in carbon emissions. After meeting people in this ecosystem, we were first put in touch first with Circul'r to talk about the notion of the circular economy and everything we could put in place. Then with Utopies to work on our carbon footprint.
BC: What’s the one major thing you think has to happen right now to further sustainability efforts?
QC: We put a lot of energy into involving all our employees and partners in this dynamic. Because together we will always be stronger, faster and more efficient. It is very important to us to be transparent with our customers because it is, often, thanks to them that positive changes happen. We are very optimistic about the future.
BC: What’s the one most promising technology or development you think the industry should adopt more broadly?
QC: There are actually two things that we are particularly interested in, and that can be very impactful:
The circularity of our products: we meet with partners who develop processes for harvesting products at the end of their life, dismantling products, crushing products and then recycling the material so that they never end up as waste but on the contrary always have a use.
The origin of the material: we are very close to companies that are conducting research on cleaner materials, less fossil fuel-based, but which still have strong technical properties, the most important being to create solid products that last over time.
