A Chat with Zoe and Ali Watkiss, Founders at Eyewear Brand: SunGod

SunGod is a British performance eyewear brand, with offices in London and Verbier. We founded SunGod in 2013, with a mission to See Better: better products, with a better customer experience, that are better for the planet. Over the past nine years, SunGod has grown to become a globally-recognised performance eyewear brand redefining customer experience, build quality and sustainability in the industry.

Our partnerships are integral to our brand, and we’re careful to only work with partners who share our vision and values. Key partnerships include: England Rugby, McLaren F1 Team, cycling team Liv Racing Xstra, and the Great Britain SailGP Team.

We’re also a certified B Corp™ committed to upholding high standards or social and environmental performance and working with a triple bottom line that puts people, planet, and profit on equal footing.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
We (Ali and Zoe) had been working in London and were always looking for ways to spend more time outdoors, whether that was in the mountains, on bikes or just on two feet. We were frustrated by what the existing eyewear market had to offer; either expensive designer sunglasses that came with huge mark-ups, or cheap £10 knockoffs that broke in a few wears.

We took matters into our own hands by creating a direct-to-consumer eyewear brand that cut out the middlemen, and allowed us to offer high-quality, fairly priced sunglasses and ski goggles straight to our customers. By saving money on bricks and mortar and third-party distributors, we were able to offer durable, lifetime guarantee-backed custom products, all for a fairer price for the customer. We’re now a global brand, with industry-leading products, world-class partners, and an incredibly loyal community base.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

 
We’ve stayed true to our core pillars of better products, better customer experience and better for the planet since Day One, but SunGod has evolved as a brand hugely since its conception.

Our lifetime guarantee has been offered on all SunGod products as standard since the first pair sold back in 2013, but there are elements of our business that have changed hugely. We now work with high-profile partners and athletes such as England Rugby, WiV SunGod and world number one trail runner Coutney Dauwalter.

As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to build closer relationships with our suppliers and help them work increasingly with recycled and recyclable materials. Now we’re bigger, we’re able to put greater time and resource into making sure our suppliers are fully bought into our mission.
 

What can we hope to see from SunGod in the future?

 
From a sustainability viewpoint, we’re already certified carbon neutral across our products and operations, back to Day One, but our ambition is to achieve net-zero. This is while still driving forward with our See Better mission – to become the best D2C eyewear brand on the market – through constantly enhancing our products and customer experience.

We’ve partnered with some of the hottest names in the sports industry this year, like cycling team, Tekkerz CC and we’re not stopping there. All whilst our Product team is working tirelessly on R&D to enhance our product offering and cement our position in the market.

Also, while sustainability has been core to our business from the start, our recent B Corp™ certification is an exciting next step for us. It verifies our sustainability initiatives and bolsters our aim to inspire sustainable business practice within and beyond our industry. When we see industry giants like Oakley becoming more sustainable, we’ll know we’re making an impact!