Study maps challenges of sustainability in eyewear

An alliance formed with the ambition of supporting the eyewear industry to accelerate circular systems has published a whitepaper exploring the state of sustainability in the sector.

Frame the Future’s Catalyst Study maps the shared challenges and opportunities of the eyewear chain, based on research and interviews with 19 companies in the eyewear industry.

The paper identifies six structural frictions that are holding back acceleration of sustainability in the eyewear sector, and also outlines critical pressure points in the value chain.

The alliance was founded by Xenia Glutz von Blotzheim, brand and sustainability strategies and fractional corporate sustainability director at eyewear brand, Mykita, along with Andrew Clark, environmentalist, educator, and founder of Net Zero Eyecare, and Johanna Skans, optometrist and impact entrepreneur and founder of Skans Eyewear.

Xenia Glutz von Blotzheim told OT about the publication of the new whitepaper and why practices are not on the sidelines when it comes to sustainability in eyewear.

What is Frame the Future?

Frame the Future (FTF) is a non-profit, pre-competitive alliance for the eyewear industry. We, the three co-founders (Xenia, Johanna, and Andrew) created FTF because many of the sector’s sustainability challenges are not ‘company problems’, but system problems, and no single player can solve them alone. We see our role as to act as a neutral systems integrator — helping the industry move from fragmented effort to shared language, shared infrastructure, and coordinated action to full circularity.

What motivated the creation of the whitepaper?

The Catalyst Study started from a very practical gap: there was no real baseline available. No single report had mapped the sustainability challenges of the eyewear industry as a system, and there was no global forum or coordinated body bringing that picture together.

So we set out to build that first fact base. Not as an academic exercise, but to help the industry understand where change is most needed and where collective action can have the biggest impact.

Practices are not on the sidelines of this shift. They are where trust is tested most directly

How do you hope this paper, and identifying the six barriers, could support greater coordination in sustainability?

The paper helps make one thing very clear: the eyewear industry does not have a sustainability awareness problem. It has a systems problem.

The six barriers show where progress breaks down: the ‘Data Wall’, the ‘Trust Gap’, the ‘Price Trap’, the ‘Waste Engine’, the ‘Retail Filter’ and the ‘Hidden Footprint’. Together, they show that eyewear’s sustainability challenge is not a lack of intent, but a lack of shared infrastructure.

Once you can see the pattern, you can start responding properly. Some issues can be tackled internally. Others need pre-competitive collaboration, shared standards and pooled infrastructure. That is exactly the space FTF is here to open up.

Did anything surprise you in developing this paper?

What surprised us was how consistent the picture was. We spoke to very different players across the value chain, yet the same structural tensions kept surfacing: limited access to robust data, uncertainty around claims, waste streams with no viable system behind them, and a lot of effort happening in parallel instead of together.

We were also struck by how important the practice environment is. Upstream progress means very little if it cannot be understood, communicated and trusted at the last mile.

What action would you like to see taken as a result of the paper?

We would like to see the conversation move from isolated ambition to collaboration, and ultimately perhaps shared infrastructure. That means working together around the things the industry cannot solve alone: setting standards, clearer measurement, better data pathways, viable recycling systems, and stronger guidance on what can genuinely be claimed.

For practices in particular, it also means recognising that retail is not the end of the story. It is the point where sustainability either becomes real — or gets lost.

Sustainability in eyewear is entering a new phase... It is becoming an issue of proof, credibility and operational readiness

How would you recommend practices use this paper?

As a practical tool. First, to ask sharper questions of suppliers and brand partners — about materials, traceability, repairability, take-back, packaging and proof behind claims and select their portfolio accordingly.

Second, as a team learning tool. One of the study’s clearest findings is that sustainability often gets filtered out at retail level because teams are not properly equipped to translate it.

And third, as a way to prepare for where the market is heading. Repair, reuse, evidence-based claims and clearer product information are only going to become more important.

What takeaway do you hope readers gain from the report overall?

Sustainability in eyewear is entering a new phase. This is no longer just about good intentions or brand storytelling. It is becoming an issue of proof, credibility and operational readiness. But the report is also optimistic. The barriers are real, but they are solvable. What eyewear needs now is more coordination. And for OT readers specifically, that matters because practices are not on the sidelines of this shift. They are where trust is tested most directly.