Oris Debuts One Pearl of a Watch
Nations, big corporates, non-profits, individuals living normal lives – the responsibility for reversing climate change falls on all of us, no matter where we are or how much impact we think we can make. Change for the Better, Oris’s continuing mission, will only come if it collaborates. At Oris, its focus has fallen on the world’s water, the source of life. The company is passionate about cleaning, restoring and protecting water. It’s brought stories and watches to life around a water monitoring station on Lake Baikal, coral restoration outplanting programs in Australia and Florida, and initiatives ridding our oceans of plastic.
In 2021, Climate Partner independently certified Oris as a climate neutral company. The company also released its first sustainability report, a “square one” that details its carbon footprint, how it’s offsetting it, and how it’s going to reduce it by 10 percent a year for the next three years. Today, sustainability and Change for the Better are a core attitude at Oris. They impact every product it releases, every decision it makes – everything it does.
This summer, the mission continues in collaboration with Billion Oyster Project, a non-profit restoring New York Harbor, once one of the world’s most polluted waterways.
To support the project’s pioneering work, Oris is releasing the New York Harbor Limited Edition, a 2,000-piece limited edition based on its high-performance Aquis diver’s watch. Its signature feature is its green mother-of-pearl dial, inspired by the color of the famous harbor’s water, and by oyster shells. It’s a powerful symbol of an incredible story.
Oris’s mission to bring Change for the Better continues through a new collaboration with Billion Oyster Project, a pioneering non-profit working to restore New York Harbor’s once lost oyster population. The project’s vision is ambitious: to restore one billion oysters to the city’s iconic waterways by the year 2035.
Why? Several centuries ago, New York Harbor was home to 220,000 acres of oyster reefs. An adult oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day, while oyster colonies create ecosystems for other marine life, and form natural storm barriers. Oyster reefs are to the ocean what trees are to the forest.
As New York City grew in stature as a global hub for trade and shipping, its population developed a taste for oysters. At the same time, the harbor became a dumping ground for sewage, industrial waste and other pollutants. By the early 20th century, the harbor’s water was filthy and diseased. Marine life all but vanished.
It wasn’t until 1972 that New York’s Clean Water Act was passed, prohibiting the dumping of waste and raw sewage into the harbor. In time, the water quality began to improve so that come the millennium, marine life started to return. In 2010, whales were spotted in the harbor.
Billion Oyster Project began in 2014. Founded by educators Murray Fisher and Pete Malinowski, it recognized that without educating current and future generations, conservation efforts would be futile.
In the years since, the project has brought 11,000 volunteers, 8,000 students, 100 New York City schools and more than 50 restaurant partners together to place oysters, build reefs, and keep the story going.
And together, they’re bringing Change for the Better. Billion Oyster Project has introduced 75 million juvenile oysters to 18 restoration sites covering 14.5 acres of New York Harbor, and the oyster population is now self-sustaining.
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