WATCHPRO: The luxury watch industry

WatchPro has published a feature on sustainability in the luxury watch industry, and Haelixa’s Director of Anti-Counterfeiting and Brand Protection, Klemens Link, is part of the conversation.

The article looks at why watchmaking may be better positioned for sustainability than other luxury categories. Mechanical watches are built to last decades, get repaired rather than replaced, and pass between owners for generations. Christie’s, Chrono24, and Wind Vintage all point to the same trend: the pre-owned market, now estimated at roughly CHF 24 billion, is becoming the industry’s most natural sustainability advantage, even when collectors are buying for rarity and value rather than for the planet.

Brands are also making changes upstream. Panerai’s eSteel initiative, Chopard’s ethical gold commitments, and Ulysse Nardin’s use of reclaimed materials all show an industry rethinking what goes into a watch, not just what happens to it after purchase.

But Klemens raises a point that’s easy to miss: where a material claim ends and where it should begin.

“Country of origin is a starting point, not an endpoint,” he told WatchPro. “It tells you where something came from on paper. It does not tell you what happened between the mine and the finished product.”

Klemens Link, Haelixa’s Director of Anti-Counterfeiting and Brand Protection

That distinction matters because a claim about responsibly sourced gold or certified gemstones is doing two jobs at once. “Saying a watch uses responsibly sourced gold or certified gemstones is a sustainability claim. But it is also an authenticity claim,” Klemens said.

Documentation can support the first claim. It struggles to support the second, especially once a watch changes hands. A certificate stays in a file. A Haelixa ProofDNA™ marker stays with the material itself, from the mine to the finished piece, and can be physically verified at any point after, including years later on the secondary market.

As Klemens puts it: