As a watch manufacture that has called Geneva and its majestic surrounding alps its home since its establishment centuries ago, Emile Chouriet is doing its part to support initiatives and projects that aim to preserve our natural heritage and raise awareness about the direct and measurable impacts of climate change on ecosystems in Switzerland and across the world.
As the sharing and transmission of knowledge has long been a central value of Swiss watchmaking, with the Emile Chouriet manufacture ceaselessly training new watchmakers as they begin their new career, the brand is lending its hand to an innovative project with an immediate and measurable positive impact on glaciers and their surrounding communities.
The “Ice Stupa” is an ongoing project developed in collaboration between the University of HIAL in Ladakh and the Academia Engedinia in Samden via the Swiss association GlaciersAlive since 2016. Originally conceived by Indian engineer Sonam Wangchuck to preserve glacier water for villages and people in the Himalayas, the Ice Stupa is an artificially created ice cone to collect meltwater from a thawing glacier. This water is then stored until the summer, where it can be used for agriculture.
On the Swiss front, the project is lead by Professer Felix Keller, supported by a team of Swiss and Ladakhi glaciologists. Professor Keller and his team have invented systems to improve the efficiency and performance of the Ice Stupa in the Himalayas using their experience with the Ice Stupa in the Swiss Alps. To transmit these latest developments to their counterpart in the Himalayas, Professor Keller invited two students from Ladakh to train them in this new water harvesting system and glacier grafting technique. Emile Chouriet, deeply supportive of this project, financed all the accommodation and travel expenses for the two students coming from Ladakh to Switzerland during the 2022 winter season.
