What environmental impact do our glasses have?

We wanted to know, so we worked to calculate it

06/27/24

We are here to present our second Impact Report, which details the projects we completed in 2023, in relation to the objectives of common benefit we gave ourselves - as a “Società Benefit” - in 2022.
There are a thousand ways of doing business in Italy and around the world, and we have chosen one:  we commit ourselves to achieving systemic results, that at their centre have a good financial statement, while not taking attention away from how we engage with the environment and society, considerations that are often intangible, and that balanced numbers alone will never fully account for, but nevertheless contribute the value created by the company.
In this past year we have been particularly committed to sustainability, and in fact the focus of 2023 was conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of our products.

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What is and what does our LCA calculate?

It is an analytical and systematic methodology for the assessment of the environmental impacts of a product - or the amount of CO2 released - throughout its life cycle: from the extraction of raw materials all the way to its disposal, it defines the process "from cradle to grave".
In our case we engaged in a "from cradle to gate" analysis of one of our glasses: from the extraction of raw materials, to their processing, to the production of the model, and finally the arrival of the glasses at VANNI’s warehouse.

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Our numbers:

The LCA study, commissioned by the Bicocca University of Milan, in collaboration with Liito, highlighted unequivocal figures: the impact in terms of CO2 (the main cause of climate change) of the V1632 eyewear model is 2.35 kg, a number below the average reference values of the sector, thanks to our use of Italian raw materials and to the choice to manufacture everything in our national territory. Made in Italy is therefore synonymous with quality, as well as with sustainability. The same glasses, if they were produced in Asia, would have generated 4.45 kg of CO2, about 89% more emissions, due to the high environmental impact of intercontinental transport, not to mention the immeasurable "social impact", that is, the difficulty of verifying dignified work standards and the conditions of workers in factories that are far away’-.

Unlike fashion and accessory brands that evaluate the impact of their "green" products, specific to capsule collections with limited numbers and productions, the results of the LCA study of VANNI products were calculated on the basis of a model of glasses that is representative of the entire production of acetate glasses. The VANNI collection includes many other models, different from the one taken as the sample, but that are similar in the production process and materials used.

 

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“Made in Italy, for sure" is our signature. 

We have always maintained that producing in Italy is the choice that makes the difference and today we wanted to prove - in numerical and analytic terms as well - that it is the right choice for our environment, which is something we must seriously care for, to preserve it and pass on to future generations. 

On top of this, the positive data on our CO2 emissions is not an end point, but rather a starting point, as we now know where we can act to further improve ourselves. This is our commitment for years to come, as we have established in our impact report, which we have just published and you can read here below.