When it comes to sustainable, designer-quality eyewear, Greenwich Social Club is changing the game. Founded by Sophia, a lifelong prescription eyewear wearer, the brand is driven by a commitment to transparency, ethical production, and eco-conscious materials. From sourcing deadstock acetate and recyclable titanium to offering glass lenses, every pair of Greenwich Social Club glasses is designed to be timeless, durable, and environmentally responsible.
Frustrated by high mark-ups, limited style options, and a lack of sustainable end-of-life solutions in the eyewear industry, Sophia launched Greenwich Social Club to provide high-quality eyewear at a fair price while taking full responsibility for the lifecycle of the products. With a supply chain built on small-batch, handmade production and a circular recycling programme, Greenwich Social Club proves that fashion, function, and sustainability can coexist beautifully.
Sophia shares the story behind Greenwich Social Club, her commitment to ethical practices, and how the brand is redefining what it means to buy eyewear consciously.
What inspired you to start Greenwich Social Club, and when did you know that sustainable eyewear was the direction you wanted to take?
I’ve been a prescription eyewear wearer my entire life so I was my first customer! Two things always frustrated me about the process of getting a new pair: one, frames that were advertised for a certain price would often be 4x the cost at the till once prescription lens costs were added in, and two, I always felt opticians lacked styles that felt classic and timeless. In summary, price transparency and style.
We’ve seen such a boom in minimalist and capsule fashion recently as people try to consume less as well as more consciously and ethically. I saw a gap in the market as I felt there was a huge lack of not only timeless fashion but also sustainable styles in the eyewear industry.
There’s a statistic that an estimated 4 million pairs of glasses are thrown away annually in the UK alone - that’s shocking. Most, if not all of it, will end up in landfills. I myself have so many old pairs lying around at home - so many rendered unwearable due to everything from wear-and-tear to a changed prescription, and felt so frustrated there wasn’t a sustainable end-of-life solution for them.
Eyewear has a unique market position in that it’s also a necessity for so many like myself, and even the NHS recommends replacing your frames every one to two years to account for general wear-and-tear. It felt like the industry needed to move in a direction where we continue to provide eyewear as a public good but also offer a sustainable solution where brands take the responsibility for the items they sell into the world.
Greenwich Social Club has such a strong eco-conscious ethos - can you share the moment or experience that made sustainability non-negotiable in your business model?
Sustainability is a personal fight for me and always has been. My family is from Guangzhou, a city in China which houses a significant portion of the world’s textile industry. I’m sure most readers will own at least one piece of clothing produced there! When China began to industrialise in the late 90s and early 00s, driven heavily in part by foreign demand for goods, there weren’t as many environmental practices in place in China as there are now. The air pollution from these factories was so dense we’d wear masks on the street. My cousin developed asthma from it. There were days of high smog alert where we’d keep my elderly grandparents inside in an attempt to protect their lungs. These experiences made me viscerally understand how unsustainable overconsumption can be for people and the planet’s wellness.
Nowadays, things have changed a lot over there, which is great. Every time I go back I’m pleasantly surprised at how well China has done to bring about more eco-friendly practices, but those childhood moments will always feel visceral to me. I think a lot of people struggle to visualise how much a single choice, for example, picking up an extra dress or a jumper or a pair of trousers ‘just because’, genuinely can have such a massive negative knock-on effect.
Poor consumption choices cause a multiplying effect that affects us all, but I don’t think the onus should be placed on the consumer. I believe as brands we should be firstly, and primarily, responsible for fixing what’s broken, and that ethical profit is possible.
Your supply chain transparency is incredible. Can you walk us through what it looks like behind the scenes?
Sure. We work with family run, independent eyewear manufacturers who get subcontracted orders from the world’s largest brands. They often place massive, bulk material orders to service these brands’ orders and often order more raw material than is needed in case there are any quality issues and they need to re-do something. More often than not, though, there aren’t, so they end up left with extra material. That’s where we come in. Often this material is thrown out, but we negotiated small-batch production which allows the manufacturer to reap better return on cost for themselves but also means we’re tapping into more sustainable materials from the outset.
All of our eyewear is crafted on a handmade, made-to-order basis, so we’re not crafting products that get wasted, too. Once our customers feel their eyewear has reached the end of its lifespan, we provide a free shipping label to return their eyewear to us for recycling. Right now, we recycle all of our products, but the medium term aim is to develop circular practices where we can reuse our materials to create new eyewear. This would be a totally new and radical approach to the business, but our hope is that if we can adopt it, other brands might also follow our lead to create a greener industry.
You work with some of the world’s top eyewear production centres. How did you go about selecting these partners, and what do they bring to Greenwich Social Club’s quality standards?
I’m very blessed to be a native Chinese speaker, so we spent considerable time on the ground vetting our manufacturers as well as learning every step in the design production system from them, which in turn also helped inform our in house design skills. I deeply care about workers’ rights, greenwashing issues and quality control - especially in regards to lens production, as with lens production, we cross over from the world of fashion into healthcare, and I’m conscious how important it is we get it right.
I also really care about ensuring we work with independents as much as we can. So far all of our manufacturers are family owned. In addition, 50% of our manufacturers are female led, which I’m especially proud of!
So for workers’ rights, we regularly conduct factory audits. We personally walk the floor, speak with many of the workers and review factory reports. For sustainability we run lab tests on products to ensure their quality and composition, and for quality control, we check lenses and run a range of technical tests on them before we dispatch any eyewear to our customers. These tests do cost us more, but doing things right at every step is core to our ethos.
We love that you use deadstock materials. For customers who may not be familiar, can you explain what deadstock is and why it’s so important for reducing waste in fashion and accessories?
Deadstock essentially means material that’s left over from another order - essentially, you can think about it like leftover food after a meal. It’s hugely important to find uses for deadstock because fashion is one of the most polluting industries on the planet and overproduction is causing huge climactic issues, from suffocating the Ganges River in India to massive pollution sites in Ghana. There’s a statistic that says we have enough clothing already produced on this planet to clothe the next six generations. We need to do better, quickly.
Acetate, glass lenses, titanium - your materials list is refreshingly natural. How do these materials enhance both sustainability and the customer experience?
One, natural materials are much better for you than cheap virgin plastics. Acetate and titanium are more lightweight, durable, comfortable and hypoallergenic, as well as are both derived from natural materials. Glass lenses, too, are derived from sand. Virgin plastics are more brittle therefore much more likely to break and can even melt into your skin on hot days. I think using acetate and titanium ensures customers have great quality eyewear that lasts them much longer, feels lighter and is healthier.
Producing premium designer-quality eyewear at a fraction of the price is a bold promise. What allows you to offer this quality without the designer markup?
Simple - the eyewear industry itself has crazy markups, so being able to offer eyewear at a fraction of this was straightforward! A 2018 investigative report by The Guardian found mark-ups of 700-800% at high street opticians compared to manufacturing costs. Unfortunately consumers don’t realise that they’re really just paying for a brand or a logo.
Your recycling programme is amazing - customers can return their old frames for 15% off their next pair. What inspired this circular approach and how does the process actually work?
When customers are done with their eyewear, we send them a prepaid return shipping label for them to send their eyewear back to us. All of our eyewear is compostable or recyclable, but unfortunately it isn’t possible as a sum of its parts, so we break the parts down once we receive their return and then sustainably dispose of them. Hopefully we’ll be able to reuse these parts in the future, but, transparently, we’re still working on that one. We thank our customers by offering them a 15% discount on their next pair, but of course there’s no obligation to purchase from us again if they don’t want to.
Packaging is often one of the biggest sustainability challenges. How did you ensure Greenwich Social Club’s packaging stays as environmentally friendly as your eyewear?
Unfortunately in the game of logistics and packing there is an inherent carbon footprint, and there’s no way (at present) to fully avoid this. We aim to use natural materials in all of our packaging and limit plastic wherever possible.
Design is a huge part of your brand identity. Where do you draw inspiration for GSC’s signature shapes, colours, and minimalist aesthetic?
I find myself inspired by Greenwich (where I live), English heritage and the natural world. My partner and co-founder Michael’s family have lived in Southeast London for over 150 years, so from inception we wanted to fuse our love for England and nature together. Greenwich is a lovely, lush Borough of London, with impressive buildings and an incredible history intertwined with the British Navy, so we started from there and created a world inspired by it. My personal aesthetic is heavily minimalist inspired too, so we felt like it naturally told a story that we felt was authentic and close to heart.
What has been your proudest moment since launching Greenwich Social Club - a milestone, customer story, or something that made you realise the impact of your brand?
Can I say it was our first order from a stranger? Starting a new business is so scary and to know that someone placed their hard earned money and trust in us as a new venture is such a mark of validation.
Another milestone I’m proud of is that since our launch we’ve had customers from three continents which feels pretty crazy. I know there’s so many options on the Internet so I’m grateful for every person who places their trust in our business.
Building a sustainably led business often comes with unique challenges. What hurdles have you faced in keeping your supply chain ethical and environmentally conscious?
The biggest issue on the horizon would be how to keep our supply chain ethical and environmentally conscious if we got more scale. There could come a point where demand significantly outstrips the amount of deadstock material we have. That’s why I’m laser focused on trying to create circularity in our supply chain, so we can have multiple supply streams - but, ultimately, it’s a tricky one.
Consumers are becoming more aware of fast fashion waste. What advice would you give someone looking to make more sustainable choices when it comes to eyewear?
Only buy acetate or titanium eyewear and make sure that your lenses are either anti-blue light (for opticals) or full UVB spectrum (for sunglasses) tested. Avoid TikTok Shop and ultra-cheap options whenever you can because corners have likely been cut and supply chains are murky at best. My mum always says there’s no such thing as free lunch, and I think it’s the same with purchasing things online. If something seems too cheap or too good to be true, it probably is.
If you could change one thing about the eyewear industry as a whole, what would it be and how is Greenwich Social Club helping to lead that change?
We’d love for brands to take responsibility for the waste they produce. We’re starting that, from day zero!
What’s next for Greenwich Social Club? Are there new materials, collections, or sustainability initiatives you’re excited about?
We recently did a video series on our socials on sample styles we didn’t roll out in the main collection and got so much feedback from people asking for us to release them. Stay tuned, we’ll be planning a very limited drop on these in the New Year!
Sophia’s vision for Greenwich Social Club goes far beyond creating beautiful, timeless eyewear. It’s about taking responsibility for every stage of the product lifecycle, from sourcing and production to recycling, while challenging the eyewear industry to rethink waste and overproduction.
As the brand continues to innovate with limited drops, circular initiatives, and sustainable materials, Greenwich Social Club is not just making glasses - it’s shaping a movement towards conscious consumption in fashion. For anyone looking to invest in high-quality, stylish eyewear that aligns with their values, Greenwich Social Club offers a refreshing, responsible alternative.
With every pair, customers not only get premium designer-quality eyewear but also contribute to a greener, more transparent, and ethical industry. Stay tuned for the brand’s upcoming collections and sustainable innovations - the future of eyewear is looking bright and sustainable. Visit https://greenwichsocialclub.com/
