The Why

We are a marketplace designed to help you make a conscious choice when buying sunglasses. We've curated fashion-forward styles and ranked them for you by their impact on the planet.

We've been picky though and only the eyewear that meets our minimum criteria makes the cut. Use our rating system to choose Good, Better, Best when it comes to the environment.

While more and more people want to buy sustainably most people put buying 'green' in the too hard basket.

Who can blame them when it's next to impossible to know where your sunglasses have been made, let alone understanding the materials they've been made from and the process it has taken to get them onto the shelf of into the hands of customers.

That's were Folkal comes in.

In a world's first, we're providing a new level of transparency.

On each product page you'll be able to see the sustainability rating at a glance.

Is this product Good, Better or Best when it comes to the environment for example.

You can then see the eco-materials used to make that product plus further sustainability details such as packaging used and end-of-life processes.

With this level of transparency, we believe more people will understand the impact of their purchasing decisions and as demand grows for more sustainable eyewear, so too will the need for the industry to change.

EYEWEAR REIMAGINED

Imagine a world where mainstream eyewear is consistently ranked as one of the most sustainable industries. That's a world we want to be part of.

  • How it started

    With a vision to evolve the eyewear sector to become the most sustainable in the fashion business, Sydney creative agency Edge developed the idea for a marketplace designed to help you make a conscious choice when buying sunglasses.

    The team then approached one of the largest manufacturers in the industry, Safilo, to help them get the idea off the ground. Who better to help kick start change within the industry than one of the biggest players, right?!

    Folkal Eyewear was then born.

    To provide total transparency however it was important to have a system to understand, and then rate, what makes a pair of sunglasses more sustainable.

    The team reviewed several different rating systems across different industries and consulted with sustainability experts both within the eyewear industry (and outside this niche) to develop just that.

    Only products that meet a minimum criteria are eligible for sale on Folkal.

    This is all part of keeping our promise to help consumers make a better, more conscious choice when it comes to eyewear.

    Learn more about our Rating System

  • The future

    Whilst buying consciously is a good start, Folkal want puts its money where its mouth is and do more to make the eyewear industry more sustainable.

    For each purchase made online, Folkal has partnered with Plastic Bank® to rescue plastic bottles directly from the ocean. Not only does Plastic Bank® remove plastic from the ocean and landfill it also turns waste into an empowering form of income by creating positive economic opportunities for those who help collect the waste.

    The collected material is also reborn as Social Plastic® which can be easily reintegrated into products and packaging as part of a closed-loop supply chain. Plastic Bank prevents ocean-bound plastics from reaching our waterways, but they also reduce the number of new plastics being created by encouraging companies to switch to recycled sources.

    In addition to this, Folkal is actively working with partners who are innovating in areas that will help make eyewear more sustainable and are working towards providing customers the opportunity to donate to their chosen project.

    Folkal also plans to significantly expand the range and are happy to receive interest from other brands. The vision is to create the world’s largest collection of planet-friendly eyewear, giving consumers as many
    choices as possible.

    Want to join the movement?

EACH PURCHASE MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Currently, more than half of plastic produced is designed to be single-use, and less than 9% is recycled. Today, over 5 trillion pieces of plastic litter the ocean. By choosing sunglasses from Folkal you are helping to reduce this number.