Essilor spends €19m to eradicate poor vision

Essilor has announced that it will reinvest a €19m (£17m) tax refund into the group’s initiatives to eradicate poor vision.

The company’s board of directors has decided to allocate the money received from a one-off dividend tax refund from the French tax authorities to activities that support Essilor’s goals.

Essilor aims to improve awareness and create sustainable vision care infrastructure for the 1.5 billion people in the world living with uncorrected poor vision. 

Chairman and CEO of Essilor International, Hubert Sagnières, said: “In the same way that we immunise our children against infectious diseases, we need to immunise everyone against poor vision by making vision care universally available to each person on the planet.”

“Through this decision, and Essilor’s renewed commitment, we are convinced we can help mobilise other organisations to join us in our fight to eradicate poor vision in one generation,” he added.

Essilor has set targets to achieve by 2020 focused on tackling this issue globally, which includes creating 25,000 primary vision care providers and investing €30m (£27m) in programmes to increase access to eye care in underserved regions.