Rolex sets time on a ‘Perpetual Planet’
For nearly a century, Swiss watchmaker Rolex has supported the pioneering explorers as they push the boundaries of human endeavour.
Since the 1930s, Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches have accompanied individuals to the highest mountains and to the ocean depths, serving as precise, reliable tools. In turn, these groundbreaking expeditions proved to be the perfect “living laboratory” for the brand to test and develop its timepieces. But the world has changed. As the 21st century unfolds, exploration for pure discovery has given way to exploration as a means to preserve the natural world. Rolex continues the legacy, supporting the explorers of today on their new mission: to make the planet perpetual.
Mount Everest
And so this year, the luxury watch brand is launching the Perpetual Planet campaign to consolidate its ongoing support of research on environmental issues and climate change.
It adopts a three-pronged approach, embracing an enhanced partnership with the National Geographic Society to study the impacts of climate change, as well as with Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue initiative to safeguard the oceans through a network of marine protected “Hope Spots”. It also encompasses the Rolex Awards for Enterprise that recognise individuals with projects that advance knowledge and protect human well-being and the environment.
Rolex’s history with National Geographic goes back more than 60 years. The Society has supported bold people and transformative ideas for more than 130 years, making valuable contributions to exploration, science and conservation. Articles about these ventures appeared in its eponymous magazine, National Geographic. In 1954, one of those articles described Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s history-making ascent of the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest. Rolex was also involved in this epic adventure, having supplied the expedition with watches.
This shared spirit of discovery drew Rolex and National Geographic together over the years as they continued to support pioneers exploring new realms. Both organizations have, for example, been involved in two separate expeditions to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the oceans, located in the Pacific.
James Cameron's deepsea challenger submersible on a test dive in Papua New Guinea
The first was in 1960 when the bathyscaphe Trieste, piloted by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, carried an experimental Rolex Oyster watch, the Deep Sea Special, fixed to its exterior as it descended to a record depth of 10,916 metres. It returned to the surface in perfect working order.
Fifty-two years later, in 2012, filmmaker and Rolex testimonee James Cameron completed his solo dive aboard the Deepsea Challenger, which carried an experimental diver’s watch, the Rolex Deepsea Challenge, on its robotic manipulator arm. The watch, waterproof to 12,000 metres (39,370 feet), resisted more than 12 tonnes of pressure on its crystal, kept perfect time and emerged from the water unscathed.
Perpetual Planet aims to harness world-renowned scientific expertise and cutting-edge technology to reveal new insights about the impacts of climate change on the systems that are vital to life on Earth: mountains as the world’s water towers, rainforests as the planet’s lungs, and the ocean as its cooling system.
The first expedition supported by this partnership was to Mount Everest and ran from April through to the end of last month. The Everest expedition team, led by National Geographic and Tribhuvan University, aimed to understand better the effects of climate change on the glaciers of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya that provide critical water resources to 1 billion people downstream. This information, coupled with additional data sets on water supply and demand in the region, will form the basis of a new index to track the health of the Himalayan water system and inform decisions to help protect it.
Of the venture, the president and CEO of the National Geographic Society, Tracy R Wolstencroft, said: “Together with our partners at Rolex, we will harness the power of science, exploration and storytelling to reveal critical insights about our changing world, advance understanding and scale up solutions toward achieving a planet in balance.”
Arnaud Boetsch, director of communication and image at Rolex, added: “This project goes to the heart of the commitment Rolex has made to a Perpetual Planet and to future generations, by supporting individuals and organisations in their efforts to preserve the natural world and the systems that sustain life. It is essential to base solutions on reliable data. The insights from these expeditions will be invaluable to informing decisions on how the world can best tackle the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges.”
Joseph Cook, 2016 Rolex Awards Laureate, researches how microorganisms in the ice sheet afect climate
2016 Rolex Awards Laureate Sonam Wangchuk is helpingHimalayan farmers overcome water shortages by tapping meltwaters to build artifical glacie
