Parafina

Parafina is headquartered in Madrid and is a certified B Corporation. This means that the company is audited three times a year by the organisation B Corp. Parafina must meet certain standards in terms of environmental performance, transparency and working conditions. In addition, the brand is also a member of the BCOME evaluation system. This tool assesses a company’s environmental, social and ethical efficiency. 

Parafina also established its own social project in Paraguay. They invest 5% of their sales proceeds into this project. The project ensures that children in a region of Paraguay have access to stable and quality education.

Parafina uses sustainable materials in their products. Most of the materials are recycled. For instance, they use wine corks, car tyres, PET bottles and cans from landfill, among others. The resulting cork, rubber, plastic and metal are then made into frames.

The brand also uses organic bamboo grown on their own farm. This is a very strong and sustainable material. Indeed, bamboo grows very fast, needs little water and does not need chemical pesticides or insecticides. It’s also biodegradable as it’s natural. 

Another material used by Parafina is bio-acetate. Conventional acetate is made from wood pulp combined with chemical plastics. Bio-acetate does not use chemical-based plasticisers, making its production less harmful to the environment and the material more biodegradable after use.

The lenses are the only part of the glasses that are not made from recycled materials. They are produced in Germany.

At first glance, Parafina seems to be doing well in terms of circularity. They recycle waste into new products, thus helping reduce the global waste problem. Parafina’s innovations are a positive development for the eyewear market and the glasses of the future! 

Unfortunately, Parafina sometimes combines different materials together in one frame. Recycled cork is combined with recycled HDPE plastic in one frame. This combination of materials makes the glasses much harder to recycle after use. Stainless steel, for example, a material often used for glasses, is easy to recycle because you can melt it over and over again. 

Other Parafina frames are easier to recycle, though. Organic bamboo from the ​‘bio-bamboo’ range is used to make the temples of the glasses. The frame itself is made of plastic. Thus, the materials are not mixed together and can easily be recycled separately. The bamboo temples are even biodegradable!

Parafina does not have a short supply chain. The material they use comes from landfills in Japan, Europe and the Middle East. The brand does not share where the glasses are produced, unfortunately, rendering it impossible to completely assess their production chain.

Parafina does not use any materials of animal origin in their products. So the brand is completely vegan!

And by recycling materials such as PET bottles, the brand prevents this waste from ending up in the ocean. This also makes Parafina’s eyewear animal-friendly!

The collection is contemporary, featuring modern frames and colourful designs. Parafina have something for everyone with their range of different styles that will suit all tastes. The reading glasses are available in strengths 1 to 3.5.

The glasses are made with a real attention to detail and quality. This helps the products last longer.

In its own words, Parafina values transparency. Unfortunately, this is not really the case in practice. The brand does not share information about their production sites. This makes it difficult to find out how ethical these glasses really are.