Moving lighting beyond energy efficiency and towards a circular economy

Lighting has done a lot to promote sustainability. LED products have longer lifetimes, greater system efficacies, and are more flexible and controllable. We are now seeing a further major transition with the move to a circular economy. This was evident in the UK’s first ever conference for sustainable lighting, Circular Lighting Live, held in September. The focus was to encourage and challenge the lighting sector to adopt a sustainable circular economy model.

The keynote address was from John McRae, Director at architectural practice, ORMS. John challenged the entire sector to reach zero carbon, and to fully embrace circularity. He told delegates to treat buildings as material banks: seeing them as repositories or stockpiles of valuable, high quality materials that can easily taken apart and recovered, a practice that ORMS is embracing.

The International Standards Leader at Lutron, Neil McLean, laid out the legislative changes planned for the EU. Of note is a review of the existing Ecodesign Framework Regulation. This will introduce the concept of Life Cycle Assessments for products, and reporting of, and minimum performance set on, material efficiency (recycled material content, recyclability, durability, repairability, etc.)

Defra informed delegates that an Ecodesign and Energy Labelling consultation is planned for later this year, along with WEEE Regulation reforms to encourage better ecodesign. The importance of other specifications, including Environmental Product Declarations, and embedded carbon assessments was also discussed.

The pivotal role of the specifier in encouraging more sustainable lighting was tackled by two panels, both composed of five experts, drawn from across the industry.

Suppliers have an important role to play in the design of sustainable light fittings. Increasingly they are using recyclable and, in some cases, recycled materials, and using shorter supply chains to reduce transport carbon and introducing end of life take back.

Prioritising re-manufacture

Several presentations focused on the need to prioritise re-manufactured and reused product over recycling. Although there have been some great examples of success, it was clear this is still in its infancy and needs to become mainstream.

TM66 – an agreed measure of the circular principles of a luminaire

Repeated endorsement was received for TM66, the CIBSE and SLL specification for circularity in the lighting industry. TM66 is increasingly being seen as a useful tool to allow specifiers to identify lighting products that are properly designed with circular economy principles. The metric is said to be still ‘in beta mode’, although many manufacturers are beginning to adopt it. Once the specification is finalised, TM66 has the potential to drive change by clearly differentiating those products that are designed for a circular economy.

Embedding circularity in real world projects

Colin Ball of BDP gave an inspiring presentation sharing examples of creative lighting solutions with sustainability at their heart. He spoke of the application of new daylight metrics enabling designers to combine and fully optimise artificial and natural lighting design, reducing the amount of lighting needed to be installed. LED technology is now seeing the advent of wireless mesh solutions that deliver a more responsive, individually tailored control that consumes less and enhances user wellbeing.

Lighting has done a lot to promote sustainability

Conclusions from the conference

The conference demonstrated that the lighting sector has a growing depth of circular knowledge and guidelines. However, the implementation of a circular model needs better demonstration of the commercial benefits for clients. This will help to move them to purchase or rent durable solutions instead of continued reliance on the linear economy, short-term financial savings and short life products.

Ultimately, the success of this conference will promote change in our industry – more re-manufactured and re-used product, more use of recycled raw materials, more products that fully embrace circular economy principles, more manufacturers reaching net zero, and lighting designs and specifications that fully prioritise all of these.

Recolight, recolight.co.uk

Volo CCT Recessed Modular

Option Available

Available from stock Available from stock

• Standalone system • • Standalone system • • 8 output and 10 output variants • 8 output and 10 output variants available •available • • Suitable for dimming and • Suitable for dimming and non-dimmable applications • non-dimmable applications • • Presence or Absence detection • • Presence or Absence detection • • 1 or 2 channel applications • • 1 or 2 channel applications • • 1 or 2 channel applications • • 1 or 2 channel applications • DALI gateway • DALI gateway • • 10 outputs • • 10 outputs • • Fully addressable and broadcast options • Fully addressable and broadcast options available. available. Communication with DS10 only • Communication with DS10 only • • Can communicate without the need • Can communicate without the need for DALI ballasts • for DALI ballasts • • Emergency Monitoring when used in • Emergency Monitoring when used in • Emergency Monitoring when used in • Emergency Monitoring when used in conjunction with head end PC • conjunction with head end PC •

• Use with DALI Ballasts luminaires • • Use with DALI Ballasts luminaires • • Graduated Dimming • • Graduated Dimming • • Future Proof • • Future Proof • • Plug and play installation • Plug and play installation (requires programming) • (requires programming) • • Simple on site configuration • • Simple on site configuration • • All lead configurations available • • All lead configurations available • • All lead configurations available • • All lead configurations available •