Cedric Bellon

Cédric Bellon is a Swiss-based independent watchmaker, designer, and sustainability advocate whose brand represents one of the most coherent and concrete responses to the environmental contradictions of the watch industry — not through branding or labels, but through a rethinking of how watches are actually made. Bellon studied geology before graduating in product design from the École de Design Nantes Atlantique in France. He discovered watch design in the early 2000s, and watch brands including Bell & Ross, TAG Heuer, and Longines became his first clients; he made watch design his full-time career in 2005. The idea of making more sustainable watches crystallised as early as 2006, but the watchmaking industry was not ready for that conversation — too focused on marketing, communication, ambassadors, and perpetual novelties. He founded CB Watches in late 2020, when environmental awareness had become more mainstream and when he identified a community of like-minded collectors through Watchangels, whose ability to question their own production processes provided the intellectual companion the project needed. Bellon is a member of the GPHG (Foundation of the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève), and his brand publishes sustainability reports — making it one of very few watch companies with a publicly available environmental accounting of its own production.

The philosophy of Cédric Bellon Watches is expressed not in abstract commitments but in a concrete, documented set of production principles that the brand calls its circular supply chain. It begins with material: Bellon sources 100% recycled stainless steel locally in Switzerland, transforming it in-house into both cases and dials — using the same tooling and the same metal for both, so that the leftover material from case machining becomes the raw material for dial production, generating zero waste from the cutting process. No galvanic treatments, no acid, no chemical inks are used in finishing; surface quality is achieved through mechanical means alone. Components that cannot be produced in-house are sourced primarily in Switzerland, occasionally from nearby Europe. The movement — a Dubois Dépraz automatic calibre — is an existing Swiss-made calibre chosen for repairability, long-term parts availability, and proven reliability over decades rather than for novelty; the brand's commitment to open-source repair plans means that a Cédric Bellon watch can be serviced by any competent watchmaker anywhere in the world, with no proprietary lock-in. Energy in the workshop comes from renewable sources. The underlying watchmaking philosophy is captured in a phrase that Bellon uses repeatedly: 'Technical, not technological' — a mechanical watch, requiring no battery, no network, and no software update, is the archetypal sustainable product. Repairable. Never obsolete. Able to work for decades.

The collection comprises two families within the CB01 platform. The CB01 Small Second is the foundational model — an automatic tool watch with a small seconds subdial, distilled to the essentials of legibility and utility. The CB01 GMT is the complication variant, adding a second time zone display — practical functionality without excess. Both families are available in multiple dial colour variants and case configurations, including titanium options. The image in this listing shows the CB01 Chronometre in the brown/silver colourway — a dress-tool expression of the same circular production principles. All CB01 watches are 100% Swiss Made, assembled by Bellon in his Swiss workshop. The brand publishes detailed sustainability certificates for its watches, available on the website.