Audemars Piguet Foundation, Switzerland
Beyond its support for contemporary art, Audemars Piguet is equally a pioneer in the field of environmental protection. Begun in 1992 through the efforts of Jacques-Louis Audemars (the great-grandson of the cofounder of the company of luxury watchmakers), the Audemars Piguet Foundation sponsors significant avant-garde philanthropic projects in forest conservation across the world.
When in the first years of the 1990s, the watchmaker from Le Brassus, Switzerland got ready to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its flagship model, the Royal Oak, its thinking came full circle to return to the area from which its precious timepieces have been created, the Vallée de Joux and the vicinity. For generations, the inhabitants of these regions—farmers who over the long winters took up the precision craft of watchmaking—exploited the land, cutting down trees in massive quantities before realizing what they were doing and trying to remedy their actions through a detailed reforestation plan. The forests of the valley, brought back in part through the efforts of the “old generation,” will be the initial focus of the new campaign spearheaded by Audemars Piguet.
“My father Jacques-Louis Audemars wanted to bring about a long-term project and not simply something for PR,” says Jasmine Audemars, the president of the board of directors. “This landscape inspires us and nourishes our business sense, so we wanted to
participate in the safeguarding of these natural areas in the world,” she says. To date, the watchmakers have sponsored 121 projects in forty-nine countries (twenty are still underway in fourteen countries). What are the criteria for projects? “We look for projects that don’t have much visibly, and so where our aid can make the difference,” explains Olivier Audemars, the vice-president of the company. Projects encompass biodiversity, but they also address local populations, with the ideas in mind of sustaining local savoir-faire and of instilling in children an appreciation for the environment. “We want the local people to be able to conserve their own ancestral lands that are under threat, while supplying the necessary knowledge for an ecologically-minded culture,” Jasmine Audemars remarks. Beyond simple preservation, the Foundation returns to the origins of dysfunction by empowering the affected populations, and this intervention bodes well for the transmission of patrimony to future generations. The Foundation’s activity also extends to financing appropriate legal action that will allow these populations to fight against government-sponsored deforestation.
Thus, in relying upon the scientific collaboration of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—an organization that brings together more than a thousand governmental and nongovernmental bodies to discuss the environment—the Fondation Audemars Piguet has created for itself an image of rigorous quality that inspires other businesses to imagine new approaches to ecological questions.
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