Lighting Journal March 2023

ICE IS ‘SNICE’

Inside Sweden’s astonishing, luminous (and very cold) IceHotel

HOLDING THE LINE

Unpicking what the industry can do to respond to the energy crisis

NOT GUILTY, M’LUD

Why it’s not LED street lighting we should be blaming for light pollution

The publication for all lighting professionals

Highway Electrical Association Award Winner 2022

06

REIMAGINING THE NIGHT

It’s not going to happen overnight but we’re already seeing a shift away from urban spaces at night being lit almost solely to allow us to see and be seen by vehicles. This could transform how we perceive and use the city at night – and how it is illuminated –argues Roger Narboni

12

HOLDING THE LINE

As the energy crisis continues to eat into local authority budgets, how can and should lighting professionals hold the line against demands simply to switch off public realm lighting? An expert panel at the ILP’s energy crisis event last month grappled with this question

20

NOT GUILTY, M’LUD

LED streetlighting often gets the blame in discussions about rising skyglow and light pollution. But, argues Allan Howard, really the finger of guilt should be being pointed at illuminated advertisements, floodlighting, overly lit buildings, façade lighting, parking lots and sports grounds

26

‘LIGHT ALWAYS WINS OVER DARKNESS’

As Russia’s war with Ukraine marks its grim one-year anniversary, how have Ukrainian lighting professionals coped and adapted over the past 12 months?

Mykola Kabluka, co-founder of Dniprobased Expolight explains how the industry has responded

32

40 THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

As lighting works to become more sustainable and genuinely circular, questions around project longevity, better management of waste, product lifespans and, crucially, client expectation will all become increasingly important, as a high-level lighting panel recently discussed

46 GO FOR GREEN

Moving to a genuine circular economy approach, in particular embracing tools such as CIBSE’s TM66, can involve challenging your client to think in new ways. But it is something we’re going to have to get used to, argues Simon Fisher

50

‘THE ILP IS HERE TO HELP’

LDC London is aiming for a busy year of both face-to-face and online technical events, plus trying to combine the value of networking with technical knowledge, writes Peter Burbidge

51‘YOUR EYES AND EARS ON THE GROUND’

LDC Scotland plays an important role in keeping ILP members north of the border – and lighting professionals generally – up to date with what is going on in the industry and the wider Institution, explains Lindsey McPhillips

52

ICE IS ‘SNICE’

Sweden’s astonishing IceHotel in the village of Jukkasjärvi is not just an amazing space to visit. The fact it is rebuilt every year makes it a vibrant crucible for ice artists – but also an ongoing challenge for lighting designers, as Emilio Hernandez writes

36 SOLAR, SUPPLY AND SUSTAINABILITY

We all think of solar as a more sustainable alternative to conventional street lighting – and it is. But what about how solar streetlights are produced, the raw materials, the carbon, the supply chains, how sustainable is all this? Mark Hopkins investigates what you need to know

‘WE NEED TO GET YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED’

In our latest profile of young and up-andcoming lighters, Kier Highways’ Ben Steels explains how the ILP’s Exterior Lighting Diploma unlocked his career

COVER PICTURE

The Ceremony Hall Hikari at the IceHotel, Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, as created by artists Natsuko Saito and Shingo Saito. Turn to page 32, where lighting designer Emilio Hernandez reflects on his recent visit there, and what it showed him about illuminating such a challenging space. Photograph by Asaf Kilger, copyright the IceHotel

Volume 88 No 3

March 2023

President

Fiona Horgan

Chief Executive

Justin Blades

Editor

Nic Paton BA (Hons) MA

Email: nic.cormorantmedia@outlook.com

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‘Where is our line as professionals?’ That question, from ILP President Fiona Horgan, went to the very heart of an invigorating day of debate last month at the ILP’s special energy crisis event.

The event, as we report from page 12, discussed how local authority lighting professionals can better stand their ground when under intense pressure (as many are) to switch off lights, dim and trim, switch to solar and so on to save on spiralling energy bills.

We will pick up on more from the day in Daventry in next month’s edition of Lighting Journal. Suffice to say, the feedback I heard was that it was felt to be immensely valuable as both a face-to-face event and in terms of helping members navigate their way through what is a difficult and challenging time.

One of the reasons we’re in an energy crisis is, of course, because of the war in Ukraine. The war marked its grim one-year anniversary last month and, for many within the country, 2023 remains quite literally a question of holding the line.

What struck me, however, when I spoke to Dnipro-based lighting designer Mykola Kabluka (from page 26) was his absolute certainty that his country will prevail over Russian aggression.

It is impossible to know of course where the war is going – and by many accounts the coming months could well be pivotal. But, for me, from a lighting perspective, the fact Mykola’s practice is not just still working but immensely busy globally speaks volumes both for the ‘family’ of lighting and the adaptability, creativity and, indeed, bravery of lighting professionals and their clients inside Ukraine.

Sticking with the theme of holding the line as lighting professionals, Allan Howard’s push-back (from page 20) on the role, or impact, of LED street lighting as a contributor to light pollution and skyglow will, I am sure, generate some debate and reflection.

Allan’s argument, essentially, is that criticism of LED street lighting as the cause of much of the growth in light pollution and skyglow in recent years is unfair. Rather than well-specified and well-designed street lighting, he argues, it is other light sources, often less well planned (if planned at all) that are much more the culprit.

Illuminated advertisements, floodlighting installations, lit buildings, façade lighting, parking lots and sports lighting are all much more villains of the piece here. Which makes the publication of the ILP’s new guidance PLG05 ThebrightnessofilluminatedadvertisementsIncludingDigitalDisplaysis all the more timely.

Personally, I’m not sure I’m totally on board with all of Allan’s arguments, not least his assertion that there can be instances where energy reduction within lighting installations goes too far. But his wider arguments certainly make sense; you just have to wander around almost any busy urban or public realm space at night these days to see evidence of (sometimes horrifically) poorly planned, specified and installed domestic or commercial lighting.

For me, this illustrates three final important points. First, the job there is still to do to mitigate skyglow, light pollution and unwanted artificial light at night beyond street lighting. Second, the importance of proper, considered expert lighting design within this. Third, the absolutely pivotal role that lighting professionals can, should and indeed must play here.

Perhaps that is an equally valuable line in the sand for the profession to be holding and articulating – to local authorities, municipalities, commercial and domestic clients, and simply, as an education piece, to communities more widely. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Nic Paton Editor

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REIMAGINING THE NIGHT

It’s not going to happen overnight but we’re already seeing a shift away from urban spaces at night being lit almost solely to allow us to see and be seen by vehicles. In time, this could transform how we perceive and use the city at night – and how it is illuminated

By Roger Narboni

For several years now, in most dense cities around the world, new urban and mobility policies have been put in place to reduce the place of the car in the city and the speed of vehicles.

This, in turn, has created a major challenge of redistributing the public space gained to promote public transport, ‘soft’ modes of transport (such as cycling) and pedestrians. In this scenario, there is an argument that functional street lighting as we know it could soon become archaic, even useless.

The planned deployment of electric cars, then autonomous vehicles that will no longer need drivers, will make the separation between sidewalks and carriageway we’ve all got used to obsolete, as well as the presence of streetlights regularly at the edge of it. Public lighting, as we have known it for decades, may need to be totally rethought as a result.

In the Middle Ages, the streets did not offer a demarcation between vehicular and pedestrian traffic. And for many centuries pedestrians were in the majority on such streets anyway, while horses, chariots,

carriages and carts were very much the minority.

In France, the first sidewalks appeared on the streets of Paris just before the French Revolution. By the middle of the nineteenth century, these had become relatively commonplace on both sides of the roadway. Then, gradually, car traffic and parking became privileged at the expense of the space reserved for pedestrians, which in turn gradually became more and more restricted.

The lighting on these streets, initially placed on the façades of the buildings or suspended down the centre, followed this traffic-first evolution. It, too, gradually became installed on the sidewalks to allow the road to be ever-more devoted to vehicles.

The installation of functional street lighting accelerated after the Second World War, with advances around accommodating and improving night vision for drivers, so as to avoid pedestrians. This was the start of street lighting, as ILP members well know, becoming one of the most familiar sights on our highways and streets, arranged at the edge of the road so as to ensure continuous and uniform lighting.

The result has been millions of light points around the world, lights that have built the night image of our cities, leading in turn to passionate debate around light pollution at night and night aerial vision.

As car technology evolves, however, and especially against the backdrop of the climate crisis fuelling this switch away from conventional vehicles, will this very classic approach become obsolete? And perhaps sooner than we might assume?

I’d argue the major urban changes we are seeing – even though, as yet, they are at small scale – should encourage us to revolutionise the way we think about public lighting in cities at night. I’m now going to suggest four ways that I think our illuminated public realm could change as a result.

Obviously, predicting the future can never be exact, but I believe it is plausible to argue that at least some of these changes may in time become as familiar as the conventional road/pedestrian dichotomy that we have all become used to for so many years.

1) NIGHT LOUNGES

In this scenario, streets could be radically reimagined to offer (as in Medieval times) a continuous thoroughfare from building façade to façade.

So, free of a pedestrian/traffic delineation, free of linear columns of lighting running down each side and free of photometric constraints. On this last point, because there would be much less need to be

Public realm lighting

differentiating the illuminance between the sidewalk, bike path and roadway, there would be more freedom and flexibility around uniformity of illuminance or tonalities of light.

It is not simply a question of rethinking pavement lighting or pedestrian lighting but of going well beyond that and rethinking the whole space: studying and developing innovative ways to light environments for public spaces.

This, in turn, could become more closely linked to the nocturnal mobilities that will, in all likelihood, still be important – bus stops, access points to stations and so on. Lighting will be used to facilitate and encourage greater use of public transport at night, the safety of local night travel, the need for us all to have a social and eco-responsible approach to lighting, and the implementation of an inclusive night city.

One element within this could be ‘night lounges’, or illuminated public spaces (outdoor and covered) where people could pause on their night journey or whatever they’re doing.

The lighting in these spaces would need to be flexible, varied, user-friendly and interactive. It could perhaps be controllable or adjustable to accommodate different nocturnal uses as well as work to improve the wellbeing of city dwellers at night. So it would be about lighting that encourages social connection, reduces stress, is linked to our biological rhythms and so on.

Of course, as well as lighting, these night lounges would need to offer users all the possibilities of the smart city currently either already available or soon to be available in the future. So, internet or Wi Fi connection, electric or device charging, sound diffusion and so on.

They would be places where citizens could, if they wish, interact with users or passers-by; places where they could control and choose their lighting atmospheres from a cocktail of scenes or scenarios (intensity, colour, patterns and textures, types, distribution in the space and so on).

They would be reassuring, protective spaces, either from simply the noise and hustle and bustle of a city at night or literally protective, for example if, say, someone was feeling vulnerable in the street.

The social role that urban lighting plays, already, in our everyday lives is well established. In an urban environment, attractive and welcoming lighting can help to break the isolation of city life, especially for those who are less well off economically and so perhaps don’t have access to their own private spaces. The decline of streets based around traffic versus pedestrians could in that scenario encourage a more sensory and restorative urban approach.

This page and throughout: imagining how the future car-less (or car-separated) city could look. Image by Frédérique Parent

Public realm lighting

Alongside this, the consideration of gender in the planning of public spaces – especially safety and vulnerability – must be an important part; it must be something systematically planned-for within the new nocturnal ‘normal’ of the urban world.

2) DEMOCRATISING URBAN LIGHTING

Building on the idea of night lounges, the increasing controllability of light through our smartphones has great potential in this new urban night economy.

If we’re no longer constrained by having to light the road and then the pedestrians, and in a way that keeps them both apart, interactivity and participation by citizens in the nightscape becomes much more possible. In effect, urban and public realm spaces can become ‘democratised’ at night.

So, as we’ve already highlighted, in night lounge spaces city dwellers might be able to modify the nocturnal image of a place for a given period of time and according to preset scenes or scenarios. But this interactivity via light could be extended to other spaces – parks for example or even retail centres.

The democratisation of the lighting of public spaces could enable city dwellers to regain control over their nocturnal environment, allow them to create lighting

environments they want and which work for them. Citizens will finally be able to free themselves from the stranglehold of city technicians and lighting engineers who have always decided on and functionally designed the lighting of the world’s cities without real citizen debate or input.

These nocturnal lounges must be thought of and designed as modular structures (with simple and robust elements) that make it possible to create different types of spaces depending on the size and shape of the public space to be occupied.

They can be installed and fixed autonomously in the public space, but also perhaps hung from an existing mast or joined to a nearby façade.

Some types of lighting can be integrated from the outset, other lighting can be added on demand. Accessories (mini-projectors, colour filters, night lights, garlands and so on) can also be made available to personalise or decorate these spaces according to the evolution of the space and/or the desire of those using them.

It is not a question necessarily of creating new types of urban furniture but thinking about these spaces in the context of light, conceiving them as places capable of transforming and shaping their nearby

nocturnal environment and of offering city dwellers interactive, original, and innovative lighting atmospheres.

Covid-19 of course also showed the importance of outdoor space at nightfall. In the wake of this pandemic, and in view of the major role that terraces of bars and restaurants are still playing today as well as other types of extensions in public spaces, lounges can be a way of using light more creatively in the public space, in either a temporary or permanent way.

Wellbeing, stress reduction and rejuvenation could become the driving forces in the design of urban lighting – rather than needing to see or be seen by traffic. This includes of course the greater use and facilitation of nocturnal sports in the streets and parks.

3) REDISCOVERING DARKNESS

We’re all only too aware that global warming means we must reduce our energy use. The best way to do that is, very simply, to switch off more. Global warming will lead to a greater need for, a greater imperative for, darkness; the need to rediscover the night and its freshness in the city after sunset.

In this new night-time urban environment, darkness – rather than simply being a

This image, below centre and left all by Noémie Riou. Image bottom right by Juliette Maricourt

Public realm lighting

by-product of an otherwise illuminated city – will need to be organised, spread and developed deliberately and gradually. As well as the drive of climate change, the necessary preservation of nocturnal biodiversity, currently in great danger, will be another important motivator here.

Public and private lighting must in this scenario be redesigned – designed and implemented to limit light pollution and respect the environment.

This may mean considering ‘dark infrastructure’, darkness preservation, building darkness into architectural and lighting design, delineating areas of darkness (partial, temporary or permanent), how darkness connects and intersects with light and lighting in the public realm, the role of darkness within vulnerability, safety and inclusion at night. And ‘considering’ here means ensuring consultation processes are carried out with rather than just for inhabitants.

When darkness is no longer synonymous with sometimes irrational fears or feelings of insecurity, new urban scenarios can then be imagined in response to energy crises. Without having to worry so much about roads versus pedestrians, darkness can become a key tool in the global will to fight climate change and reduce air pollution, in the rediscovery of the night in the city, and in the invention of new ways of lighting.

We may end up with a scenario where a city has zones of darkness that gradually expand to contain and limit at night the bright islands formed by the megacities. These large new dark ‘territories’ will allow the human eye to rediscover its night vision, to see the stars and heavens anew, and to encourage city dwellers to readjust mentally and psychologically to wandering in the dark night.

4) PORTABLE LAMPS

Urban populations’ use of autonomous, portable lights could pave the way for night learning and new therapies based on the pleasure of being and moving around the city in deep darkness.

While walking around today with a smartphone – with its bright, glary screen –has become ubiquitous at night in many cities, the nocturnal urban space of the future will, I’d argue, gradually transform.

One way will be through the appearance, use and (and this may be the bit that takes time) the acceptance of portable and autonomous lanterns that can enable users to control their movement and their close nocturnal environment according to their needs and wishes.

These rechargeable luminous objects, and their interconnection when everyone is using them, will allow passers-by to reconstitute a collective ‘luminous space’, or even to illuminate on demand an element of architecture or landscape. Urban lighting will then no longer be just public but shared.

Within this, we could see more use of integrated bioluminescence and phosphorescence. The bioluminescence of certain

plants, fungi and even animals has long been known and while, up to now, their application and take-up has been limited, this could change.

I’d go so far even as to say they could augur a new revolution in energy-efficient urban lighting, with lighting better able to adapt automatically and in real time to new urban uses

New controllable luminous materials, new ways of illuminating will appear and transform our vision of the nocturnal public space and surrounding architecture.

Streets will be able to be illuminated using these luminous materials, perhaps on the ground or the first levels of the built fronts. This could fundamentally change how we perceive the city at night.

SUMMARY

None of this change is going to happen overnight – cars (even autonomous ones) are not going to disappear from our streets anytime soon.

But, if you pardon the pun, the direction of travel is clear. Once cities genuinely start to ‘move on’ from a traditional car/pedestrian-based approach, the possibilities are endless. We could, in time, be seeing a profound rethinking and reshaping of urban spaces and the public realm at night, and how it is lit and illuminated.

One final point, however. This rethinking and reshaping has to be done as a real consultation with citizens. This need to be something that happens through codesign, co-construction and active participation of inhabitants in the development of future lighting strategies.

The urban night, which has always of course represented 50% of a city’s time, will – I hope – eventually become a springboard to totally new thinking and approaches. Reimagining the city at night in this way will also allow us – us all – to better respond to changes and evolutions in our lifestyles and how we use cities at night.

Roger Narboni is a French lighting designer with CONCEPTO

Image by Gaia Lemmens

Image by Floriane Deléglise

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HOLDING

Lighting and the energy crisis

As the energy crisis continues to eat into local authority budgets, how can and should lighting professionals hold the line against demands simply to switch off public realm lighting? An expert panel at the ILP’s energy crisis event last month grappled with this challenging and complex question

By Nic Paton

Budgets are being slashed or, at best, frozen. At the same time energy prices show no sign of coming down anytime soon and, in fact, could be as high as 80p/KWh later this year compared to around 19p/KWh before the current crisis, adding millions to local authority lighting and energy bills.

‘We are all struggling. The pressure goes to you. “Make those cuts. Turn those lights off. Do some dimming. Do some trimming.” But where is our line as professionals?’

So questioned ILP President Fiona Horgan, opening what turned out to be a lively and informative panel debate that concluded the ILP’s special energy crisis event in Daventry, Northamptonshire last month.

The event, hosted by ILP Birmingham (and see the panel at the end for more on the day itself), was designed to bring the profession together; to try to unpick how the industry needs to respond to the intense pressure local authority lighting is now under because of the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine.

A number of keynote presentations were followed by an audience-led Q&A panel discussion. This was chaired by Fiona Horgan and brought together APSE’s Mo Baines, ILP Technical Manager Guy Harding, WSP’s Allan Howard, Gary Kemp from the Department for Transport, David Lewis from Power Data Associates, the HEA’s Michael Levack, Alec Peachey from the Local Council Roads Innovation Group, and Karl Rourke, service manager street lighting at East Riding Council.

Fiona’s question went right to the heart of what is an intensely challenging issue for the whole profession right now. ‘For myself, and I talk to people about this, as professionals we need to come together, to be stronger, to hold the line,’ Fiona said.

‘It is an interesting point, about how we

do manage to hold this line,’ agreed Allan Howard in response. The ‘line’, he agreed, needed to be something that could give lighting professionals the heft, clout and confidence to push back, to fight their corner. And, actually, perhaps the best organisation to give them this could be the ILP itself.

ROLE FOR ILP

As Allan explained: ‘What they’re looking for is support from the ILP, or other bodies that have a reputation or a standing, to provide a letter, some evidence, back to them on appropriate ILP-headed paper or whatever, saying “we are the professional body, this is what the rules say”. That therefore then gives the local authority engineer some more defence and power, or whatever, to say, “look, this is wrong”.’

This could be, for example, providing the evidence to push back on, say, a sudden rush to solar as an alternative to conventional street lighting. ‘The ILP carries a lot of weight. It will help us convince them that what they’re looking at is wrong. Just because we might have solar lighting in the park doesn’t mean we can do it everywhere or on the roads. Because that’s what they think or that’s what some rep has told them,’ Allan added.

Karl Rourke agreed the ILP could have a crucial and important role to play in this. ‘I think the ILP itself carries a lot of weight; industry governing bodies themselves, regardless of what profession or industry you are working within, do always carry weight, particularly with politicians and policy-setters.

‘I have heard of colleagues who have

The energy crisis panel, from left: Gary Kemp, Allan Howard, Karl Rourke, Michael Levack, Mo Baines, David Lewis, Alec Peachey, and Guy Harding

Lighting and the energy crisis

made the policy-makers sign waivers of responsibility for the professionals within the department, to emphasise that it is the policy-maker making the decision and not the professional person.

‘But we have to be realistic. There will be some battles we can’t win. That ability to win that battle, as we progress in the next six, 12, 18 months is going to become harder and harder and harder. And we may have to concede. But we may have to concede with a professional objection. Where do we strike that balance? I’m not so sure,’ Karl added.

BATTLING BUDGETARY PRESSURES

How do we come together to provide that support, with our leaders and cabinet members, Fiona Horgan asked. How, as a collective, do we fight that budget pressure?

‘The reality is that we’ve already started to do that collaboration across local government, across organisations across the UK,’ said APSE’s Mo Baines, citing the ever-increasing closeness between organisations such as APSE, the HEA and the ILP, among others.

However, she added an important caveat. ‘As a voice, we do not have the collective recognition with the public that, say, the NHS has. We simply don’t have that collective voice within local government. And the lack of that collective voice has allowed us to be used as fair game for cuts.

‘We are consistently the worst off over all public services because there is no recognition; we do too many professional things. We do street lighting but we also do parks; we do our highways’ winter maintenance but we also do waste and recycling.

‘We perhaps need to have some kind of pledge card among all of those professional organisations within local government so that we are all rowing in the same direction and making a similar plea to the NHS.

‘Rather than have this disgraceful bidding – this beauty contest – for lumps of capital that aren’t supported by revenue, we collectively in local government across all provided services should be arguing for the basic needs to be met with needs-based budgeting. If needs-based budgeting is good enough for the police, if needs-based budgeting is good enough for the NHS, it is good enough for local councils,’ Mo added.

Was there therefore perhaps a need for a cross-industry campaign, Fiona Horgan asked.

‘It is not an if; we’ve got to do it,’ said the HEA’s Michael Levack. ‘Collaboration is easy to talk about; it is not easy to achieve. There is no silver bullet for all these challenges. However, are some of the answers in this room? Yes, they are. Because the manufacturers, the competition between them, the innovation that is there, is incredible,

the passion. What the industry is doing from start to finish, from design to contracting to manufacturing, is incredible.

‘My advice would be to engage with your supply chain early, start talking to them. Say, “this is the really tough position we’re in, we’ve got to cut these budgets going forward, how can we do it without interfering on the real substance of what we’ve got?”. We’ve got to have that coherent message. And we’ve got to, quite frankly, get our skates on otherwise it is going to be too late,’ he added.

‘It is about being a bigger voice for all of us; we’ve got to be heard; we’ve got to be ones who are out there being listened to,’ agreed Fiona.

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Lighting and the energy crisis

RETHINKING ENERGY PROCUREMENT

From the audience, Perry Hazell, ILP Junior Vice President and business manager at Southwark Council, highlighted that, at his council, they were looking at a 50% increase in energy prices from the end of this year, which could create as much as a £900,000 budgetary hole. Could one answer, he asked, be to move to a less fractured energy procurement process, even a single, countrywide energy procurement system?

‘We’re developing a dynamic purchasing system, which is currently in development at the moment,’ said Alec Peachey of The Local Council Roads Innovation Group. ‘I think the problem you’ve got here is a perfect storm, essentially, isn’t it. You’ve got rising energy costs, you’ve got inflationary costs, you’ve got supply chain issues.

‘I think in terms of the voice of the industry, always together we are stronger. For me, communication is absolutely key. Ultimately, we’ve got to deliver a consistent message and make sure that that is heard by central government.

‘And I always say that everyone is comms; it is not just the communications or marketing professionals within our respective organisations. It is every single one of you. We all have to deliver those key messages on a consistent basis to try and make the change happen. We all need to play our part. So, for me, that’s a very key point,’ he added.

‘As engineers, you can impact the KWh, you can’t impact the pence,’ agreed David Lewis of Power Data Associates. ‘You just have to take the blunt force of budget constraints, budget pressures.

‘When I used to work in local authorities, when we did do energy purchasing, we were

members of a purchasing organisation. But what always triggered me was why were we doing it in area silos? Why weren’t we looking at it as a national impact?

‘Like Mo was saying, we are a nation, we’re all trying to do street lighting for one reason, the safety of our citizens and those who live in our areas. So, why aren’t we as a nation saying, “we should be counted as one; we should have an energy price as one”. I think this one voice should help us towards that. One voice between the organisations is where we need to be and where we need to be going,’ he added.

LOWERING LIGHTING LEVELS

What about the argument about whether lighting levels can simply be lowered? How should the industry respond to this, Fiona Horgan asked the panel.

‘I’m not going to sit here and say yes they are too high, yes they could be lowered,’ said Karl Rourke. ‘The lighting levels are in the standard for whatever reason they are in the standard, whatever research has been put behind it and so on.

‘What I will say is there is a clear distinction between lighting level and visual perception. The eye will see what it can see and will see it at certain levels. And the more you increase, it will not see more, it will continue to see what it sees, but you are increasing or decreasing the lighting level accordingly.

‘So, certainly one thing we’re looking to look at [in the East Riding decarbonisation pilot with Live Labs, see panel at the end] is we have these nice, standardised tables that we all have burning our brain. But, actually, is that appropriate for what the eye sees and for what the person perceives? And I’m not sure that that distinction has really been explored too much.

‘For example, take an average main street road and we apply 25% dimming to that. A lot of people in this room will apply dimming to their lighting, 25% between midnight and 5am. It is what we do in East Riding. I’ve stood there on the road and I’ve watched that light dim to 25%. Well, I think I have. I’ve stood there at the time it is supposed to do it; I’ve checked on my CMS that it did. I’ve checked on my light meter. But I haven’t noticed it’s dimmed.

‘So I would question there, well if my eye hasn’t noticed the difference between full

Lighting and the energy crisis

power and 25% dimmed, then why does the standard say it needs to be at full power, when actually I can reduce it by 25% and still see the same I can see? I’m not going to stand here and say they are too bright. I’m not going to stand here and say they are too dark. Because it depends on your perspective. If you are a vulnerable single mother living in area of high crime and high drug dealing, you might stand there and say “my lighting is not bright enough”. So the lighting levels on the road are very, very much open to your own perception.

‘What we’re going to look at is a lot of the scientific basis behind that. We’re going to look at what the eye actually sees. And we’re going to do user case studies; we’re going to survey people. We’re going to take a user perspective as well as a scientific and medical perspective on this.

‘I don’t think it is a question you can actually answer in terms of the regs. The regs are what they are. They might change in a few years’ time, they might not. Whether that’s too bright or too dark, that depends on who you are really and what you are doing,’ Karl added.

‘They are also our one form of defence at the moment,’ highlighted Fiona Horgan, one of the industry’s key protections against liability.

‘With my CIE hat on, we have now got some projects running to look at the lighting levels that we will need, and a lot of it is looking at the age profile of people –because we have a much-ageing population globally,’ said Allan Howard.

‘The question is youngsters need a certain amount of light, older people perhaps

need more light. So this research is going on,’ he added.

Would the British Standard then need to be changed if this distinction between lighting level and visual perception could be proven?

This was answered by Alistair Scott, chair of the BSI Technical Committee and non-executive director and chairman at DFL UK, who was in the audience. ‘The British Standards are purely guidance, and the important thing about using British Standards is to understand that lighting is such a complex subject that we would really welcome the research that is being done by

Karl and the Live Labs team, and would like research like that to be inputted into future standards,’ he pointed out.

‘But the important thing is that every task should be looked at as an individual case and risk assessment done for that case. And the lighting professionals should decide what lighting level to use. The standards are not prescriptive; they are just guidance. I think it is important that every lighting engineer who is trying to reduce energy consumption looks at that and tries to work out whether they’ve got the right lighting level or can they reduce it,’ he added.

IMPACT OF SKILLS SHORTAGES

As the discussion drew to a close, Fiona asked the panel to consider how the industry’s skills shortages colour this question. ‘Who’s going to do this? We are all struggling for staff? How are we going to get the people in to do it?’ she asked.

‘The drive is necessity,’ said Michael Levack. ‘The necessity for a diverse workforce and more resources. Whilst energy prices are soaring and we’re focusing on budget cuts that are coming through, there are so many tales that I hear, literally on a daily basis, from client bodies, from local authorities, where people are saying, “that guy used to have a team of 12 and now it’s just me and one part-time assistant”.

‘That is totally unsustainable. That is where we have got to support local authorities. How we’re going to do it, I don’t know yet. But I tell you what we can’t do it by ourselves. We need more collaboration. If we work with the ILP, if we work with people in local authority street lighting to understand what you need – we just want people

Lighting and the energy crisis

into the industry. Whether they go into the design office, to manufacturers, or a contractor or local authority, they are going to keep criss-crossing. We’ve all got a collective responsibility, and a desire I think, to make this sector more attractive,’ he added.

Alongside this was the fact that lighting, as a profession, has an ageing demographic, pointed out Fiona. ‘Go back to your local authority, look around your office and see what your age demographic is and are you leaving your local authority open for a future of no professionals when people go off into retirement? You’ve also lost the knowledge, competency and skills there.

‘We need to bring people in now to help with this future. We can’t deal with it if we haven’t got the staff to do it and the professionals and the knowledge base to progress further,’ she added in conclusion.

THE PANEL

• Mo Baines, chief executive, Association for Public Service Excellence

• Guy Harding, Technical Director, the ILP

• Fiona Horgan, ILP President and lighting design manager, The City of Doncaster Council (chair)

• Allan Howard, group technical director, lighting and energy solutions, WSP

• Gary Kemp, roads official, Department for Transport

• David Lewis, account manager, Power Data Associates

• Michael Levack, chief executive, Highway Electrical Association

• Alec Peachey, content director, The Local Council Roads Innovation Group

• Karl Rourke, service manager street lighting, traffic signals and CCTV, East Riding Council

EAST RIDING PILOT

As alluded to by Karl Rourke in the panel discussion, East Riding of Yorkshire Council is taking part in a pilot scheme to test and evaluate new technologies to decarbonise its street lighting network.

We will be looking at the pilot in more detail in next month’s edition of Lighting Journal but Karl, in his presentation to the energy crisis event, outlined how the scheme will aim to hold a mirror to the sector and, hopefully, help to develop an evidence base, a framework, for an alternative manual for highway lighting, signing and road marking.

‘Our aim is not to plunge the country into darkness, but to provide a well-researched basis to highway visual perception. In some areas, we may find that current standards don’t actually go far enough and streets could be safer and could work better if we increase illumination,’ he told ILP members.

‘We need to understand how the eye reacts and the distinction between light levels and visual perception. We need to understand contrast between wet roads and dry roads, summer nights and winter nights. A clear and robust methodology will support our final findings and provide a robust basis on which to defend the changes we make, ultimately in a court of law.

‘Our aim is to see the current 7.2 million lighting columns out there as peak saturation and provide an evidence base framework for a steady reduction in those numbers,’ he said, adding that he hoped the pilot

ILP ENERGY CRISIS EVENT

The ILP ‘Local authority lighting: energy crisis event’, hosted by ILP Birmingham, brought together ILP members from far and wide – from as far afield as Scotland and even internationally, from Canada – to discuss how the industry can, and must, respond to the energy crisis.

The well-attended event also saw manufacturers showcasing a range of solutions to the crisis.

Among the presentations – some of which will be picked up in future editions of Lighting Journal– WSP’s Allan Howard looked at the

would enable future highway design to place carbon reduction and energy use ‘as an equal priority to the visual environment we want to achieve’.

The pilot is one of seven announced by the Department for Transport in January, through the Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads competition, with £30m of funding being put behind them.

As well as the East Riding trial, pilots will look at the feasibility of producing asphalt made from green waste, such as grass cuttings. Others will evaluate changes to the design, construction and maintenance of typical UK highway construction, as well as creating a net carbon-negative model for green infrastructure delivery.

For example, Liverpool City Council will work to introduce an ‘Ecosystem of Things’. This will explore ‘a scalable and transferrable approach to understanding various systems (including design, public spaces, materials/process technology, recycling infrastructure and the legal, contractual and procurement processes) at city level to embed and adopt decarbonisation initiatives.’

Full details of the seven winners can be found on the Department for Transport website, https://www.gov.uk/government/ news/30-million-government-funding-for-innovative-projects-to-decarbonise-uk-highways

arguments lighting engineers can and should be making when asked by their authority to turn off streetlights.

The ILP’s Guy Harding gave a considered presentation on why sometimes solar lighting is not the right alternative solution in an energy crisis, and how to make that argument. Gary Kemp of the Department for Transport outlined some of the funding streams that are available for local authority lighting teams to tap into. David Lewis of Power Data Associates explained how it is imperative in the current crisis that lighting engineers are completely on top of their inventory.

Beverley, East Riding, North Yorkshire. East Riding will be piloting how to decarbonise its street lighting

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NOT GUILTY, M’LUD

LED streetlighting often gets the blame in discussions about rising skyglow and light pollution. But, really, the finger of guilt should be being pointed at illuminated advertisements, floodlighting, overly lit buildings, façade lighting, parking lots and sports grounds

By Allan Howard

LED streetlighting and light pollution

It is right and proper that we consider and look to understand and mitigate the impact of artificial light on humans as well as the environment.

From an environmental perspective there is clearly a need to reduced light pollution, obtrusive light and skyglow effects so all of us can enjoy the visual amenity and the splendour of the night sky, not forgetting the impact on fauna and flora.

From a human health point of view artificial light has always had an impact, but it has never been so much to the fore as now since the uptake of LEDs.

In considering this, we need to understand that there are wide range of artificial lighting installations that impact on the night-time exterior environmental. It is disappointing that when the topic is raised that most of the discussion and finger pointing unfairly focuses on the street lighting sector.

We see this raised from a wide range of lobbying parties time and time again in written articles and at debates.

Now, it is fair to say that street lighting installations havebeen a major contributor to skyglow, especially with low- and high-pressure sodium and other lampbased light sources linked with poor luminaire optics.

GROWING EVIDENCE BASE

This is not the case now, however. Over the years, as our understanding of light pollution has increased and especially since the advent of LED light sources, we are now seeing well-designed and managed road lighting installations with very little upward light contribution. The current standards and ILP guidance documents all support and encourage this approach.

It is not just the street lighting community stating this; it is supported by detailed research work such as that undertaken by Dr Christopher Kyba, researcher at the German Research Centre for Geoscience and others, which demonstrate that well design, installed and managed street lighting is not the greatest concern.

Dr Kyba led research to understand the contribution of well-designed and operated street lighting on the night sky and especially skyglow. Using satellites, he measured what fraction of the total light emissions were due to streetlights across the city of Tucson in Arizona.

At 01.30 every morning for ten days, the city dimmed its streetlights, increasing the percentage dimming each night.

His light-from-space experiment, published in the journal Lighting Research & Technology, showed that most of the artificial light wasted – by being sent upwards into space, rather illuminating a sign, street or building on Earth – does not actually come from streetlights [1].

Rather, it comes from other sources, such as illuminated advertisements, floodlighting installations, lit buildings, façade lighting, parking lots and sports lighting. All these types of installations are responsible for most of these light emissions.

Dr Kyba in his research advised that: ‘This is really important information for policy makers and light pollution activists.” He also went on to say that ‘this does make it more difficult to solve, because there are so many contributors. It means everyone has to get together to decide what lights need to be lit at night, and how brightly.’

FOCUS BEYOND STREETLIGHTING

It is these other exterior lighting installations lighting sport, domestic, security, industrial, commercial areas and more recently large digital media screens that therefore require the focus, as separate research by Dr Kyba has also highlighted (and see the separate breakout panels at the end for more on this).

You only have to drive along one of our motorways at night to see the detrimental impact on the night-time landscape of major distribution hubs, sports lighting, illuminated advertisements as well as security lighting installations compared to which street lighting pales into insignificance.

As Dr Kyba has commented: ‘The message is not that streetlights don’t matter, because they most certainly do. The message is that, if your goal is to reduce light pollution, it’s not sufficient to consider only streetlights.’

The architectural landscape is not helping matters. Over the years, we have seen a rise in large, glazed office blocks and in the domestic arena what we might term ‘the Kevin McCloud effect’ (named after the presenter of the TV show GrandDesigns) in the encouragement of domestic premises, especially in rural areas having large, glazed areas linking the exterior with the exterior.

By day this may be fine but at night these

LED streetlighting and light pollution

buildings intrude, one may say trespass, into the dark landscape within which they sit.

Most do not seem to have mitigation measures to prevent internal lighting impacting on the external environment within which they sit or the exterior observer seeing into the building.

These properties are often coupled with statement exterior lighting using up/down lighters around the property, which serve little purpose apart from saying ‘here I am’.

This is a topic advised in the ILP’s GN09 domestic security light guide [2]. But, alas the main consumer retail outlets only provide lighting equipment that causes obtrusive lighting issues rather than ones that resolve it. This, I’d argue, needs to change.

Comment is being made that the advent and use of LEDs has increased the amount of lighting. This is perhaps not true; we are perhaps more aware of lighting installations than before.

In part, as white light is reflected/ refracted by water vapour/particulates in the air and, for example, in foggy or rainy conditions, we see the luminaire beam distribution.

LIMITS TO ENERGY REDUCTION?

As the UK and international governments continue to drive the adoption of more energy efficient light sources, we have seen almost the total removal of all other light sources from the market and white LED light is virtually the only source available to use.

This, I would argue, is not a good thing; there are lighting tasks that just do not fit LEDs. In the past, for a large area we would use double asymmetric projection luminaires, but there is really no good viable LED solution for this application.

Energy reduction is fine but if it removes tools that we as designers need to produce good lighting installations then I would argue it has gone too far.

Considering humans, we have always been aware of the impact of artificial light on humans, it is not a new thing, but LEDs have raised the concern and profile.

We are increasingly aware of the effect of the blue light content on humans as well as fauna and flora. Your exposure to this and any adverse effects are far greater from interior lighting installations, domestic, retail, commercial and so on rather than from street lighting. The interior light levels are far higher; you are closer to the light sources and your exposure time to the lighting installation is far greater.

When LEDs first came out the lighting industry was perhaps too happy to embrace the technology and deploy it before we fully understood it; we saw a large use of 6000K

GERMAN RESEARCH INTO SKYGLOW

Latest research has suggested there has been an alarming 60% decline over the past 18 years in the number of stars able to be viewed at night with the naked eye, writes NicPaton

The research, from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, correlated star visibility with changes in sky brightness. This study is separate to the research highlighted by Allan Howard is his article.

It measured readings from 51,351 individuals who used a template provided by Arizona’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Tucson, which is part of the US government’s National Science Foundation.

The measurements took place between January 2011 and August 2022 and revealed an annual increase of 9.6% in sky brightness. The study was published in the journal Science[3]

‘For an 18-year period (such as the duration of a human childhood), this rate of change would increase sky brightness by more than a factor of 4,’ the team stated in the paper, which was led by the centre’s Dr Christopher C M Kyba.

‘A location with 250 visible stars would see that number reduce to 100 visible stars over the same period. Because our method uses measurements made with human

vision, it accounts for changes in both the radiance and spectrum of the night sky,’ they added. This would mean 60% of stars are fading from view every 18 years.

The research does point a finger of blame at LED lighting, not least as the researchers discovered that earlier measurements of sky brightness taken from satellites failed to capture the blue spectra that can veer skywards from LED lighting and which, in turn, can be particularly damaging for washing out the visibility of stars.

However, importantly, as Allan Howard also highlights, the German study ascribes blame not just to LED street lighting but to the growing amount of LED lighting now used for external advertising, commercial, architectural and domestic lighting.

The research, for example, points to the impact horizontal lighting is having on light pollution. Advertising and decorative lighting is more likely than street lighting to stretch horizontally, which can have a more harmful night-sky effect than vertically pointed streetlights, it has pointed out.

‘Light propagating toward the horizon is the largest contributor to skyglow because of its longer path length (by an order of magnitude) from ground to space at such angles. In the early evening, a large fraction of the light that escapes cities is emitted by sources other than streetlights, the study authors emphasised.

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LED streetlighting and light pollution

light sources, as energy efficiency was wrongly given a higher priority than ensuring the task is suitably lit.

We have seen this steadily change and 3000K is now considered best for road lighting/public lighting and we are seeing amber LEDs developed where there are wildlife concerns.

Looking back at street lighting, yes, there are many lighting installations that still need attention and change from sodium and other light sources to LED. They will be well-designed and funding is available, but it will take time to address the existing asset. Nevertheless, progress is being made.

So, I urge critics to please stop pointing the finger just at street lighting. The other ‘problem’ lighting installations of sport, domestic, security, industrial, commercial, car park lighting and advertising all need to be brought into focus. The profile and impact of such installations needs to be raised and, from there, how they can be better specified or designed and so on to ensure the task is lit but only the task and not the surrounding environment.

To conclude I’ll repeat Dr Kyba comment, as I feel it is important to reiterate it; the italics for emphasis are mine. ‘The message is not that streetlights don’t matter, because they most certainly do. The message is that if your goal is to reduce light pollution, it’s not sufficient to consider only streetlights.’

Allan Howard BEng(Hons) CEng FILP FSLL is group technical director, Lighting & Energy Solutions, at WSP

[1] Kyba C (2020). ‘Direct measurement of the contribution of street lighting to satellite observations of nighttime light emissions from urban areas’, Lighting Research & Technology, Volume 53, Issue 3, https://doi.org/10.1177/1477153520958463 [2]

GN09 ‘Domestic exterior lighting: getting it right’, the ILP, 2019, https://theilp.org.uk/ publication/guidance-note-9-domestic-exterior-lighting-getting-it-right/ [3] Kyba C (2023). ‘Citizen scientists report global rapid reductions in the visibility of stars from 2011 to 2022’, Science, 19 Jan 2023, Vol 379, Issue 6629, pp. 265-268, DOI: 10.1126/science.abq7781

[4] ‘“Like a sun on Earth’: Las Vegas warning if dazzling venue built in London’s East End’, The Observer, January 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/28/ msg-sphere-las-vegas-london-venue-concert-hall-sleep-light-pollution

PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee announced in January that it is to conduct an inquiry into the impact of artificial light and noise on human health.

Artificial light and noise are ‘pervasive’ in the modern world, the committee argued, adding that it will ‘explore the extent to which unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial lighting or ambient noise may have negative impacts on human health.’

For example, it will investigate claims

‘LIKE A SUN ON EARTH’

A planning battle is brewing in east London over concerns that a huge new concert venue will be ‘like a sun on Earth’ with massive light pollution.

According to The Observer newspaper, residents in Stratford are up in arms over the possible arrival of the MSG Sphere, which is covered by an external LED advertising display, with more than a million LEDs ‘that will show videos and adverts from dawn

NEW PLG05 NOW AVAILABLE

With illuminated advertising, spill light from commercial units and poorly positioned external domestic lighting in the spotlight when it comes to light pollution and skyglow, it is timely that the ILP’s latest update to its guide PLG05 is now available.

PLG05 The Brightness of Illuminated Advertisements Including Digital Displays has long been recognised as the authority document when it comes to assessing illuminated advertisements by local planning authority planning officers, planning inspectors, lighting professionals and advertising industry planning professionals.

It is also specifically referenced in government guidance. It is the only authoritative lighting guidance in the UK on which those involved in the planning process can rely.

The update to the 2002 edition includes requirements for digital media displays,

artificial light can disrupt sleep and circadian rhythms, which can increase the risk of heart attacks and stroke. ‘New developments, such as the introduction of LEDs, are qualitatively and quantitatively changing the levels of light and noise in the built environment,’ it has added.

The committee has therefore said it seeks to understand:

• The evidence base surrounding the impacts of artificial light and noise on human health in the UK

• The nature of the current regulatory

until late’, the paper reported [4]

A similar building is scheduled to open in Las Vegas later this year (shown above)and the company behind the project recently tested out the lighting display.

‘It’s almost like building a sun on Earth,’ a local resident told the newspaper after he saw the lights at the tip of the 111m-high spherical building being tested two miles away from his balcony.

Plans for the Stratford sphere, which is located in a much more residential setting, include a 21,500-capacity concert hall the width of the London Eye and the height of Big Ben, a nightclub, shops and restaurants.

But opposition from the residents is growing, with the proposed venue having been labelled as a ‘monstrosity’ by campaigners. The UK planning application still needs to be referred to the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has the power to refuse it.

which have become a cause for concern with respect to their impact on the local environment as well as contribution to light pollution and skyglow.

The new guide has been developed by a panel of internationally recognised lighting experts led by Allan Howard (WSP) and consisting of professor Peter Raynham (UCL), assistant professor Karolina Zielinska-Dabkowska (Faculty of Architecture, Gdansk University of Technology) and Henk Stolk (Dutch Foundation for Illumination). It has included support from the media display industry through Outsmart, which represents approximately 40 out-of-home media owners.

Members can access the new guidance as a free digital download via the ‘MyILP’ portal. It is also available in hard-copy format, priced at £40 for members and £65 for non-members.

landscape for light and noise pollution and how well these regulations are enforced

• How policy should be adjusted to minimise the impacts of artificial light and noise on human health

Because the timeframe for evidence is short (with a closing date of Friday 3 March), the ILP’s technical group formed a working party and submitted a detailed response during February. Members can however still go to: https://committees. parliament. uk/work/7256/

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‘LIGHT ALWAYS WINS OVER DARKNESS’

As Russia’s war with Ukraine marks its grim one-year anniversary, how have Ukrainian lighting professionals coped and adapted over the past 12 months? Lighting Journal spoke to one leading Ukrainian lighting designer about how the industry has responded

By Nic Paton

This month – March – marks the rather grim one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was launched on 24 February last year.

We’ve all of course spent the past 12 months watching the war unfold on our TVs, laptops and phones and, indeed, felt the ripples reverberate through our own economy and businesses. Not least of this has been the impact on the UK lighting industry of this winter’s energy crisis, as the ILP’s event in Daventry highlighted last month, and which we also report on in this edition.

For Ukrainian lighting professionals, the past 12 months have been marked by horror, trauma and adversity, especially the impact of constant air raids and losing friends, family, and colleagues. However, as Mykola Kabluka, co-founder of Dnipro-based Expolight emphasises, it has also been a year of stoicism, adaptability and the determination, very simply, not to give in.

‘Dnipro is not far from the front lines,’ he tells Lighting Journal. ‘Russia has been bombing almost every week. Our team decided to stay in Ukraine, to stay in Dnipro. We wanted to set an example, to show our confidence in the victory of our country. We are not moving, we’re here, and we’re still working!’

Notionally, we’re on the call to talk about Expolight’s lighting scheme for a new bar in Kyiv, ‘ZMIST’ (and see the panel at the end for more on this). But, naturally, the impact of the war and its effect, not just on Expolight but the whole Ukrainian lighting industry, dominates the conversation.

IMPACT OF THE WAR

In fact, it is ever-present. On our call Mykola is dialling in from Bali in Indonesia (which we’ll come back to). But, as we speak, communications and content

Lighting in Ukraine

manager Maryna Chuprova, in Dnipro, point outs – almost casually – that there have been reports of further shelling of the city.

‘The situation is of course not easy or good in general,’ say Mykola. ‘Yet, even with the war, clients have continued working on projects – for much the same reason as we have kept working, kept going forward. They understand that it’s very risky to continue construction projects when any moment a Russian missile can destroy it.

‘But it is important to keep going – for money, for economics, to keep people in work. Our cashflow for the past year of war is down €500,000. But we’ve kept paying the salaries for our whole team. Me and my partners decided we wouldn’t shrink the company.

‘We restarted our work just two or three weeks after the invasion. At that point Russia was very close to Kyiv of course. The first thing we did, because we had the time, was the team all volunteered to help with

The ZMIST Bar in Kyiv, with a lighting scheme by Mykola Kabluka and the Expolight team. Left, one of the sketches for the scheme

Lighting in Ukraine

organising heating and installing additional, temporary street lighting.

‘A few of the team, the younger ones, went to the front. Our electrical engineer, for example, who hadn’t any previous military experience, volunteered. He was injured in the first few months of the war, near Bakhmut. He spent some time in the hospital here but is now back at the front in Bakhmut.

‘So, the situation is hard. But we keep a positive attitude. We’ve installed a powerful diesel electricity generator on the roof of our building; we’ve installed satellite internet. We’ve set up independent heating generation for the office and we’ve even drilled a well into the ground to ensure that we have a water supply independent of the city supply, should we need it. We also, thankfully, have a basement where colleagues can go down and shelter during an air raid,’ Mykola points out.

RETURN OF LIGHTING PROJECTS

As the war has gone on, while things certainly cannot be said to have returned to anything near ‘normal’, lighting work and projects have gradually returned, Mykola explains.

‘We have a lot of projects still on the go, both inside and outside of Ukraine. Now, in fact, we are able to look after more international projects as well – so much so that I am travelling a lot. I’m in Bali right now, and a few days ago I was in Dubai. Before that I was London. Later this week I’m off to New York,’ he adds, highlighting that the practice has even won three international awards this year.

Dnipro in central Ukraine. The city sits on the banks of the Dnipro River. Below and overleaf, more views of the ZMist Bar in Kyiv, and (bottom right) how the city has looked in recent blackouts caused by Russian attacks on its infrastructure

Lighting in Ukraine

‘The hardest thing is that almost every day we get the news that somebody we know – a friend, relative or colleague – has died; that is the worst thing. The rest of it is just about adapting and learning to live with the situation. But you’re always aware that at any time something horrible could happen.

‘Unless there is an air raid, people are trying to carry on their lives in Kyiv as much as normal, although there are fewer people in the city than there were of course. It is noticeable that, before the war, Kyiv was full of traffic – and traffic jams – and now it’s not.

‘It may not be as noisy and bustling but it is still active as a city. ZMIST is not the only project in Kyiv we are working on, for example. We’re working on another restaurant project as well as four big construction projects, including lighting a glass façade on one of Kyiv’s main skyscrapers, which is very brave when you consider the ongoing bombing.

‘I’d say 90% of Ukrainian lighting businesses are still working. Most of them are big and so, economically, have been able to keep going. The main issue is electricity – it is very difficult to keep things going sometimes, and not everybody is able to have independent electrical power sources. But people are just adapting to cope. As I always say, light always wins over darkness,’ Mykola says.

CREDITS

Lighting design: Expolight

Lighting designer: Mykola Kabluka

Interior design: Yova Yager

Area: 1,800m²

Clients: Kateryna Zhvaliuk, Dmytro

Zhvaliuk

Photographer: Expolight

THE ‘ZMIST’ BAR

Kyiv’s ‘ZMIST’ Bar combines innovative lighting design, from Expolight, with creative and stunning glass installations created by glass-blowing specialist Optical Metaphor, a subsidiary of Expolight based in Lviv.

As Mykola Kabulka says of the project: ‘It is a great project. Optical Metaphor did an amazing job. Fortunately, their factory is near the Polish border, so about as far away from the front as you can get. But getting gas for the ovens was difficult, and diesel for the electrical generator. So, every day we were having to solve a lot of issues.

‘It was one of the first projects we restarted after the invasion. We started it in March, when the Russians withdrew from around Kyiv,’ he continues.

‘We had a call with our clients – Kateryna and Dmytro Zhvaliuk. We were texting and discussing a time when we could organise our meeting. I proposed a time but they said they couldn’t make it because they were going to be at a funeral of a colleague, his creative director, who had been killed in Bucha.

‘He’d been volunteering, with his girlfriend, to drive around bringing food and medicine to elderly people, and to evacuate them as well. But his car was stopped by Russian forces and they were shot. So that was horrible to hear,’ Mykola recalls.

‘I remember when we did finally have the video call Kateryna and Dmytro were sitting with their laptop – and a child too – in the corridor of the apartment because that’s a better place to be during an air raid, because there are more walls protecting you. But, just as it was for us, it was important for them to continue with the project, to finish the project, to support his team, and to show our support for Ukraine.

‘They wanted us to complete the project before Ukrainian Army Day in October, which celebrates our armed forces – and is especially important now of course – which we did,’ he adds.

Since ZMIST is a hookah bar, the theme and ambience is very much about smoke and shadows, using glass prisms to throw smoke-effect lighting patterns on to the walls. An installation of small trees creates a biodynamic effect, with the branches and leaves also casting shadows.

‘We made sure we used fittings that were, where possible, locally manufactured in Kyiv. However, the main supplier had his warehouse completely destroyed by bombing; all his fittings, all his track systems, were burned. So we had to replace all that, and at the start of the project it was very difficult. Railway connections between the cities at that time were also difficult,’ says Mykola.

DIGITAL PROJECTIONS

A permanent, integrated digital installation creates projections on to one wall. The lighting is also under a single control system, with the colour temperature being adjusted throughout the day, from neutral warm-white then becoming gradually warmer throughout the day, with warm accents, and dimming down. Different scenes and scenarios can be created for specific events, such as birthday or anniversary celebrations.

Indeed, if someone is celebrating in the bar, everyone can order a personalised media greeting that will appear on the wall. All content and modes are linked using a Cloud-based server, meaning it can be controlled remotely from anywhere.

The lamps have narrow directional beams and are positioned in such a way as to create sliding light and shadows. ‘We carefully worked out the percentages of the ratio of brightness, intensity, and accentuation of light for day and night lighting,’ say Mykola.

‘Because of the different lighting scenarios, it can look very different at different times of the day; it can have a very different ambience. It has become a very popular destination,’ Mykola adds.

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ICE IS ‘SNICE’

Sweden’s astonishing IceHotel in the village of Jukkasjärvi is not just an amazing space to visit. The fact it is rebuilt every year makes it a vibrant crucible for ice artists – but also an ongoing challenge for lighting designers

By Emilio Hernandez

Sweden’s ‘IceHotel’ in the village of Jukkasjärvi is an amazing venue, in an incredible location. First handsculpted in 1989 out of three massive ice blocks, it is now very much a must-visit Swedish landmark for travellers from all parts of the globe.

But when you consider going to visit it, as I was fortunately able to do last year, suddenly questions spring to mind about what this space actually involves, not least in terms of lighting such a vibrant, luminous but also challenging space.

Of course, you can read all about the IceHotel online, and many practical questions about it are answered through a Wikipedia search or dozens of the YouTube videos associated with it or, indeed, its own website [1]

But, as a lighting designer, the questions we have are not well catered for. So, we took

the leisurely 600km train ride north from Umea (which is already 600km north of Stockholm) to Jukkasjärvi to find out. The venue sits immediately adjacent to the glacial Torne River, containing some of the purest and most delicious water the world has to offer (yes, delicious water).

To give some context, the hotel is split into three camps. There are a number of traditional wooden cabins, as the river is popular with rafting in the summer months. Then there’s the ‘365 Hotel’, a permanent structure housing the Ice Bar and a dozen or so ‘permanent’ rooms, which opened in 2016.

In fact, such is the prominence of the venue, that one of the suites has been designed by Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip Bernadotte, who is himself a graphic designer and co-founder of design house Bernadotte & Kylberg.

Last but not least for the purists, there’s the IceHotel itself. For more than 30 years this has been built and rebuilt and everything is made from either ice, snow or ‘snice’ (a more consistent and reliable compacted snow ice mixture used to form the main structure) extracted from the crystal clear and very frozen Torne River.

As an architect or an engineer, you could quietly obsess over the choice of parabolic arches and wall thicknesses, ice column spacings or the easily workable, gravity-defying qualities of ‘snice’. But, as lighting designers, we had our own questions about, simply, how do you light such a structure?

At this stage I need to point out that, when we visited, the IceHotel itself was not yet formally open for the season; we had taken a 600km punt on arriving, calling a friend of a friend and asking for a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour to see how you design a lighting scheme for an ice hotel. And they did not disappoint.

Within 30 minutes of checking in, there was a

Lighting designer John Petterson leads Anna Sandgren, co-founder of Ström, through the site

Hospitality lighting

knock at the door and the hotel’s lighting designer John Petterson arrives with hard hats and high-vis jackets, as if this whole idea had been planned for months!

Upon entering the main hall through the reindeer skin-clad doors, we’re immediately struck by the generous height of the vaults and the precision of the structure. But our host quickly points out that the precision can be short-lived within the rooms themselves.

Guest artists, including yacht designers and lighting designers alike, have previously fallen foul of these expectations of structural tolerances with their laser measurers and their intricate lighting details.

The IceHotel is a moveable feast. ‘The rooms can move or sink up to half a metre during the season due to the heat generated from the occupants,’ says John. If you’re a structural engineer and planning on visiting, you’d best ignore that bit!

Corridors and ‘moulds’ are used to shape the ice and snow structures. John invites us to the lighting command centre, a fantastically quaint wooden hut 150m from the hotel itself.

It’s a site hut-come workshop, which has clearly evolved over the 30 years for this specific function.

I’m looking around at dozens of shelves teeming with electronic inventory, looms of wire, chainsaws and even a countdown clock to opening day, whilst I rattle off my list of questions.

Me: ‘Why don’t you use fibre optics?’

John: ‘We do occasionally but they tend to crack and don’t bend so well at -25Celsius.’

Me: ‘What happens to the LEDs afterwards?’

John: ‘We recover 99%, but some can’t be retrieved.’

Me: ‘Are they reused each year?’

John: ‘The cold has quite an impact on theirCCT,sotheyarere-binned.’

Me: ‘Through a spectrometer?’

John: ‘No, through visual inspection against a master light source.’ (See the ‘TESTMASTER7000000’).

The entrance to the IceHotel at Jukkasjärvi. Photograph by Asaf Kilger, copyright the IceHotel

The infamous Testmaster 7000000. This test bench is where fixtures are visually calibrated against master light sources, as the extreme cold can affect some LED chips’ colour consistency over time over time. Below: Dutch artists Edith and Wilfred take time out of their hectic schedule to talk us through their process. Note the sharpie marks on the walls where they plan to carve channels

Hospitality lighting

Me: ‘How do you run cables and power to light sources?’

John: ‘With the Snice, you can literally walkontheroofanddrillaholeforadownlight in two minutes. If something doesn’t work,wecanpatchitupwithsnoworcreate aledgetohideormountalightsource.’

Me: ‘What’s the biggest challenge?’

John: ‘With99%reflectivityonallsurfaces thechallengeisactuallygettingsufficiently low light levels. The Osram 3 x 0.3W LED puck has two of the LEDs covered and the thirdonehasseverallayersofneutraldensityfilmandabluefilter.’

Me: ‘Do you use controls/ dynamic lighting?’

John: ‘The ice doesn’t respond as well to saturatedRGBcolourastosubtlelayersof filters.Controlsystemsaresometimesused buttheamountoflightbeingusedisalready solowthatitsincrediblyhardtodimorcreate scenes. Typically, the artists want one scenetocomplementtheirwork.’

I’m briefly distracted as dozens of dogs pull sleds along the river just outside one of the windows.

We’re then invited to join a mock-up with two Dutch artists Edith & Wilfred on their installation of a ‘chicken coop’-themed room.

Designs are adapting in real time, mockups with light filters and different light sources affect decisions on where to draw the eye. They also use subtle counterpoints of warm and cool light to avoid saturation of the cones from one colour.

Whether or not to adorn a wall with intricate time-consuming details is influenced by the direction and type of lighting that could be used.

Wilfred’s made two ‘practice’ chickens, one from snice, the other from crystal-clear ice. These are tested in situ before he decides on which material to proceed with working up based on the lit effect.

Another installation that catches our eye is ‘Art Suite UV’ by a French partnership between artist Nicholas Triboulot and industrial designer Fernand Manzi.

They are the first to use UV light in the hotel’s history. Nicholas and Fernand use a black light (emitting UVA and small amounts of visible violet light at the very fringe of the visible light spectrum) to model their installations form.

They explain their fascination with UV’s properties, allowing the viewer to see beyond, deep into the beautiful sawtooth arrangement of pure ice cubes where there

The Ceremony Hall Hikari at the IceHotel. This was created by artists Natsuko Saito and Shingo Saito. Photograph by Asaf Kilger, copyright the IceHotel

Hospitality lighting

are still some tiny phosphor particles that emit light in response to excitement from the UVA wavelengths.

Nicholas admits that using violet light was a brave choice. As he explains: ‘It can be unflattering to the occupants as well as highlighting any… hygiene issues.’

Lighting design comes to the rescue here, with delicately placed white light focused softly on to the ice bed and two LEDs positioned within the cubes that form the base of the bed to emit a gentle night light at floor level.

It was also a brave choice in terms of the success of the installation’s overall concept. As mentioned by John earlier, the ice and snice respond less well to saturated colour.

This is due to the properties of water, where larger wavelengths of light are absorbed by its structure, leaving shorter wavelengths such as blue (and violet) able to be reflected.

It’s perhaps worth noting that this is different to the reason that the sky appears blue, which is due to the Rayleigh scattering effect of large wavelengths of light by tiny particles in the atmosphere.

The process of working the ice is fascinating. Artists are all provided with a vaulted room of equal size which is a (literally) blank canvas.

They work methodically from the top of the arched rooms down to the floor to enable them to gradually remove their scaffold towers. They use sharpies to mark out patterns and setting out; they have often customised their own carving tools to help with spacing or repetition, or the smoothing and detailing that working with ice and snice can require, while of course wearing thick gloves.

The concept of time is easily lost in a

windowless room in a region in almost permanent darkness – and we’ve been with them an hour already.

We visit a couple of other artists, all of whom are hugely accommodating of our interruption (see links opposite) and appear to think it’s more than understandable that we would make such a trip just to see ‘work in progress’.

We’re struck by the sense of community. This is a real team. There are no drawings, there is limited time and it’s an incredibly harsh environment inside and out.

It takes hard work, collaboration and experience to create these uniquely beautiful spaces. But, as was mentioned (on more than one occasion), also trust between the artist and lighting designer to share their vision is key. Light becomes such a critical and tangible element when working with the unique medium or snow and ice.

Most people we spoke with had completed between ten and 15 seasons at the IceHotel. This is intimidating perhaps for anyone hoping to get involved, yet also testament to the sense of community and enjoyable, collaborative work atmosphere that has been built and cemented over time despite the seasonal nature of the work.

We’d love the opportunity to get involved in future seasons. So we’re putting it out there and we’ll see what happens!

WITH THANKS

Our visit would have been nothing without the generosity and hospitality of the following artists working on the IceHotel at the time, with links included so you can see their finished works.

Edith and Wilfred: https://www.icehotel.com/art-design-bed-chickens

Tjasa and Ulrika: https://www.icehotel.com/art-design-room-service

Nicolas and Fernand: https://www.icehotel.com/art-design-uv

Marjolein and Maurizio: https://www. icehotel.com/art-design-air

[1] ‘Ice hotels’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hotel, IceHotel Sweden, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ice+hotel+sweden, The IceHotel https://www.icehotel.com/art-design-room-service

Emilio Hernandez is lighting designer and co-founder of lighting design practice Ström, based in Umeå in Sweden

Here the contractor for the main entrance hall is on the roof drilling a hole to place LED nodes within the top of each column. The lighting designer then guides them via radio from within the structure. The ice columns are internally illuminated from above

In this image, work is underway in rooms off of the secondary corridors. These are lit using borrowed light, such is the internal reflectance

Lighting HQ. This is a warm workshop where fixtures are made, repaired and calibrated for use on site

We all think of solar as a more sustainable alternative to conventional street lighting – and it is. But what about how solar streetlights are produced, the raw materials, the carbon, the supply chains, how sustainable is all this? Mark Hopkins investigates

In my previous article in the January 2022 edition of this journal (‘Legacysystem’, vol 87, no 1) I explained some of the points around specifying and installing solar lighting.

In this article, I want to look in greater depth into the bigger picture of what makes solar lighting a sustainable solution and what the environmental and ethical impacts are throughout the product life.

If we are to make an actual impact to reduce carbon emissions and to install new products that meet these criteria, then the whole life cycle must be taken into consideration. ‘From cradle to grave’ is a philosophy that underpins many decisions we make today, and making this part of an ongoing specification will be the only way a positive outcome is achieved.

To put this article into perspective, and taking street lighting as the main subject, then the pole, the luminaire, and any control electronics, will be assumed to be common components of both solar and mains installations, leaving the solar panel and battery to be considered in detail.

That is not to conclude that there are no impacts from the pole, luminaire, and controller, but they remain a fixed contribution.

I am going to take you on a journey from

By Mark Hopkins

the source of the materials and their processing, through to the manufacturing of the components and assembly, then installation, and finally the decommissioning at their end of life.

THE ROLE OF SILICON PV

Silicon PV (photovoltaic) is of course the primary source for solar panel manufacturing. As the world’s eighth most common element, you may be forgiven in thinking silicon is a low-cost material to use.

However, the silicon required in photovoltaics and semiconductors needs to be of almost perfect purity and this requires some complex and energy-intensive processes.

The journey starts with extraction of the quartz, which creates damage to the environment from mining operations. This is followed by conversion to the polycrystalline form of silicon, which is achieved through a reaction with hydrochloric acid and hydrogen.

This produces silicon tetrachloride, a colourless but volatile gas that turns to a

corrosive substance when in contact with water.

But, as a gas, it is easier to handle and, through vapour deposition, can be converted to pure silicon.

For every tonne of polysilicon produced, four tonnes of silicon tetrachloride is produced. Clean technologies to scrub this waste are employed by the West, but outdated process are recorded in some Eastern countries, which are sources of pollution.

To turn this polysilicon into wafers, it is heated in a furnace to just below 1500°C and from this furnace a single crystal is grown either by seed growth from the surface or through the gradual cooling from the bottom to maintain a single grain boundary. This produces a uniform ingot of monocrystalline silicon.

This ingot is then sliced into very thin wafers using diamond-coated wire saws. There are other innovative methods to produce wafers from the molten polysilicon, including using vacuum deposition. This prevents waste from the cutting process.

The type of semiconductor produced is now achieved by doping with Boron for ‘P-type’ cells and Phosphorus for ‘N-type’ cells.

Further processes to texture the silicon surface, acid cleaning, additional doping to

Solar street lighting

increase conductivity, etching and edge isolation, and finally anti-reflective coating deposition completes the wafer production.

It is now ready to have the copper busbars soldered in place to build into a solar panel. All these processes use various amounts of energy, but the scale of production is such that to produce 1.0m² of cells it uses up to 250kWhr, and as a guide for the UK a 1.0m² panel will produce up to 100kWhrs per year.

So, it will take between 2.5 and four years to pay back this energy. And, with solar panels lasting 25years, this is a serious net gain for the zero-carbon goal.

There are more than 350 companies in the world that take these silicon wafers and manufacture solar panels. But the primary companies in this market are again based in China, with Germany, Japan, South Korea, USA all having home-based companies. This is shown in figure 1 opposite.

The facts and figures surrounding the production process for solar PV are centred on China. As the world’s main producer, it has at an estimated 90% of the world’s production and include both tiers 2 and 3 of the supply chain [1]

The current production in China is estimated to rise from 295GW at the end of 2022 to a staggering 536GW by the end of this year. With more than 80% of this capacity exported, the dominance of a single supply chain source cannot be underestimated.

Looking, briefly, at life-cycle analysis, notably the CO² emissions from transport the CO²/kWatt hr and assuming a 30-year life cycle, what you get is as follows:

• Solar life-cycle analysis. This encompasses raw material extraction, polycrystalline production, wafer manufacture, module assembly. Here, you are looking at 45-73 grams of CO²e/kW.

• Solar shipping. It’s common to have 8,000 miles with an expected 30-year life expectancy. This gives you 15 grams of CO²e/kW.

The end of life and recycling of PV has yet to find stable economic viability, primarily because of economies of scale. This will change as the original installations reach their end of life, with the potential to recycle over 90% of the material. This will in part be driven by the supply chain, as materials such as silver become scarce and more expensive.

The science behind the two main battery chemistries for PV is well documented and, with the advent of some new innovative

environmentally friendly solutions, the outlook is very positive.

BATTERY STORAGE SOLUTIONS FOR PV

Of the many battery chemistries to choose from, two types stand out for use with solar-powered street lighting. the first and original one is lead/acid chemistry, the second Lithium-Ion. They are very different in many ways and both have positive and negative features.

Lead acid batteries have of course been the mainstay for automotive applications since before the Model T Ford and are manufactured in such volumes as to be relatively low cost.

Lithium-Ion is the newcomer, with only 32 years application history courtesy of the Sony Corporation in 1991.

The manufacturing process behind lead acid batteries starts with either recycled lead or mined lead. Again, the main world supply of lead originates in China, with over 85% of the mined lead going into battery manufacturing.

However, the lead acid battery industry has been recycling its output for many years and it is estimated that between 60% and 80% of a lead acid battery is currently

manufactured from recycled material. This makes them significantly more environmentally friendly than the plastics industry, which at best only manages a 30% recycled rate for specific plastics and, some, no better than 1%.

However, it is worth noting that many of the recycling operations are conducted in countries where environmental pollution has yet to be controlled.

The latest lead acid technology uses carbon or graphene as a coating on the anode to prevent sulphurisation of the lead. This has significantly increased the performance of the technology to rival that of Lithium-Ion in terms of life cycle and charge characteristics, with the added benefit of still being easy to recycle.

Lithium-Ion refers to a broad spectrum of technologies, all of which are defined by the transfer of lithium ions between the electrodes during charging and discharging.

Li-Ion cells do not contain metallic lithium, but the ions are inserted into the structure of other materials. For the cathode, these can be metal oxide materials made from cobalt, nickel, and manganese. For the anode, it will be lithium titanate, silicon and now graphene.

Figure 1. This shows the split in terms of primary producers, and what they tend to specialise in

Figure 2. This illustrates the different construction processes behind lead acid cell and AGM battery cell construction

Solar street lighting

The difference in manufacturing complexity between the two different battery technologies cannot be understated. However, following the huge investment by many countries into Lithium-Ion battery production, the technology has a long run ahead.

In terms of the overall environmental impact between the two technologies, the cost per kWatt Hr for lead acid is approximately 50% greater than that for lithium. However, there is a wide disparity between the different texts on the subject, ranging from 39-200 Kg CO²e/kWhr for Lithium-Ion to 250 Kg CO²e/kWhr for lead acid.

The big difference comes in the origin of the different materials used in Lithium-Ion battery construction.

The world’s supply of lithium is held between five countries. Yet the manufacturing processes are distributed throughout the globe, making it a difficult

technology to establish an accurate carbon footprint.

Currently only around 6% of Lithium-Ion batteries are recycled because of the complexity and commercial viability of doing this. For lead acid the future recycling capacity is guaranteed, with a new UK plant to come online soon in Birmingham, to recycle up to 15,000 metric tons per year.

The technology is a clean process and will make a marked contribution to the move towards COP26 compliance. This same company aims to recycle Lithium-Ion batteries on a clean commercial scale in the future.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, to answer the original questions: is solar sustainable economically viable, environmentally, and morally sound?

The United Nations’ definition of sustainability is: ‘meeting the needs of the

present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ [2]

The rapid advances made in technology in a lifetime now see environmental legacies coming round faster than in previous generations, and our actions today may have to be explained and justified within our professional lifetime. This is something our forefathers were seldom worried about.

Having said that, these figures hopefully speak for themselves. For a simple solar streetlight with a 100W PV Panel and a 25Ahr battery and a 12-watt luminaire. For, Solar PV you are looking at 43.47 kg CO².

For a Li-Ion battery, it is 11.7-60kg CO²e. For a Pb (lead acid) battery, it is 75kg CO²e. The equivalent Grid supply over the same period is 296Kg CO²e, as shown in figure 5 below (with the figure taken at the end of January).

This article is not addressing the serious moral issues regarding the way local communities are treated in the production cycles described. But, as our world continues to have open communications, I am hopeful these issues will eventually be included in the purchasing decisions – and in certain areas they already are.

Last year, the UK produced 3.9% of its energy from solar. So, although a very positive contribution to the National Grid, more than two-thirds (67%) was still generated from non-renewable resources.

While, it is clear, there is still therefore a way to go, I am optimistic that the integration of solar lighting into the equation will continue to make a positive contribution to our drive towards both energy autonomy and sustainability.

[1] For those unfamiliar with supply chain tiers, broadly, tier 1 suppliers will be direct suppliers of a product. Tier 2 suppliers will be subcontractors for tier 1. Tier 3 will be suppliers or subcontractors for tier 2. [2] The United Nations, ‘Sustainability’, https:// www.un.org/en/academic-impact/sustainability

Mark Hopkins is joint managing director of OG2 Lighting

Figure 3. A breakdown of Lithium-Ion cell construction

Figure 4. The key geographic locations for lithium production

Figure 5. A breakdown of National Grid supply, taken late afternoon on 30.01.23

A well-planned lighting solution can overcome many challenges and enhance the environment in measurable ways. With LOGIC and Schréder’s EXEDRA it’s possible.

Schréder’s EXEDRA is an advanced lighting management system that remotely controls your luminaires to monitor, meter, and manage in a lighting network. This supports to reduce operational and maintenance costs and increase energy savings, whilst contributing towards Governments’ drive to NetZERO by 2050.

As lighting works to become more sustainable and genuinely circular, questions around project longevity, better management of waste and product lifespans and, crucially, client expectation will all become increasingly important, as a high-level lighting panel recently discussed

By Nic Paton

How long should a lighting project last for before it needs to be ripped out and replaced? With the three Rs of ‘reuse, repair, recycle’ of the circular economy ringing ever-more loudly in our ears, this is a critical question that lighting engineers, designers, manufacturers and specifiers all need to be considering.

It was also a question wrestled with by an expert panel at last year’s LiGHT22, as part of the two days of high-class CPD discussions organised by [d]arc media, of which the ILP was a partner.

The discussion, ‘The lifespan of a project’, brought together Carmela Dagnello,

Lighting and sustainability

principal lighting designer at WSP and a UK ambassador for Women in Lighting; Kristina Allison, senior lighting designer at Atkins Global and co-author of the SLL/ CIBSE TM66 technical memorandum; and Colin Ball, lighting director at BDP.

The panel was first asked what they felt was the average age of a project and did that differ for different sectors?

‘The lifespan of a project is not the lifespan of the lighting or lighting systems; they are two separate things,’ emphasised Carmela Dagnello. ‘If you look at our current industry, for a commercial building, my projects last between 25 and 50 years. Because it has been designed to be for that lifespan.

‘But not all the systems within the buildings are going to last 25 to 50 years. It’s not just lighting; we can think about electrical systems. At a certain point they will need to be replaced; they need to be modernised. So we need to distinguish between these two elements,’ she added.

A retail project, for example, could be replaced in as little as one to two years, she highlighted, while an office scheme could last a decade or a train station scheme (for example, Old Oak Common in London, as shown left and overleaf) could be meant not to be replaced for 120 years.

‘Of course, not all the components are going to last that duration, but the intention is that the length of a project really depends on its use, its purpose, on the final users, and on the expectation of the client,’ Carmela added.

LED LONGEVITY

Colin Ball pointed out that the very first project he did by himself was a short piece of corridor right under Canary Wharf 24 years ago. ‘That little bit of corridor, my first project, it had halogen and compact fluorescents in it. That was only LED’d and the fittings were only changed last year. That shows, architecturally, that if you’re not in a

fit-out or a space where there is retail or turnaround, for just architecture or background space for a city, you can expect it to be 20 or absolutely maximum 25 years.’

For the practice’s work on Paddington Station (shown overleaf), the team came back to it in 2018 after first relighting it in 1999, so again nearly 20 years. In fact, the blue LEDs specified in 1999 were still operating in Paddington Underground. Equally, the plaza at Canary Wharf still has its first-generation blue LEDs. ‘And they are still working,’ he added.

‘When I first started in lighting, I used to do a lot of surveys, but they were more with the view of energy use,’ said Kristina Allison. ‘It wasn’t a case of anything looking particularly beautiful, it was about how can we reduce our energy consumption, our carbon footprint? And this was before what we are looking at in the environment now – it was 15 or so years ago.

‘So this isn’t a new story. When technology wasn’t about LEDs, it was about T5s, it was looking at the next evolution of fluorescent lamps and the savings that were available then. Architecturally, you were quite limited to linear lengths. But, again, the life of the installation was really down to the detail but also the life of the lamp, which was very short.

‘So, when LED came around it was “wow”, look what we can do now, we can do so much more. But I think we are now leaving a legacy for the long term, which we’re going to have to deal with in perhaps another ten years or 50 years,’ she added.

As Carmela had highlighted earlier, the type of project was often key in this conversation, agreed Kristina. ‘What am I going to specify? Do I need it to last 50,000 hours? If it’s a retail project, probably not, because they’re going to rip it out in probably less than five years. It is about specifying, from a lighting designers’ point of view, a product that is going to go for the duration that’s

WSP’s scheme for Old Oak Common Station in London and, right, the panel at LiGHT22

Lighting and sustainability

required,’ she said. ‘Talking about it from an embodied carbon point of view or a circular economy point of view, you’re saying, “OK, is there any part of that product or this array or installation that can be retained or used somewhere else?”. There can be electrical difficulties with that, but that’s a different story, in terms of transferring equipment to different premises.

‘But I think this is a different way in which we can look at the length of a project overall but also address some of these other issues when we talk about the environment. I think that is a responsibility that we all have,’ Kristina added.

DOING BETTER ON WASTE

The panel was then asked for their thoughts on lighting’s propensity, at least in previous decades, to rip out and start again from scratch when beginning a project. Was the industry getting better at, and getting a better handle about, managing and reducing waste?

‘I was on site last week and it is not only a lighting problem,’ pointed out Carmela. ‘It is everything. Everything is discarded on site, for any reason – a design change, anything. It’s just destined to go to waste and it’s too expensive at the moment to go there and collect these items, whether lighting or another element. We are getting there but we are not there yet.’

‘I think it is about the clients recognising that lighting is an asset and that it holds value,’ agreed Kristina. ‘You go on site and people are chucking stuff in skips but if they saw the value in the asset then maybe they would say “hang on”.’

The need to educate, even challenge, clients therefore needed to be a key circular economy conversation, ideally right from the outset of a project (assuming lighting is around the table at this point), the panel agreed.

‘I would say that, at the moment we have

two means of leverage on clients,’ said Carmela. ‘One is simply to talk about sustainability. If the client is sensible enough then we can build on this. The other one is cost. If we can build the arguments around how you can save money, you can save energy, you’re going to have a return on investment if you do this or that, we can try to use that to “win” the client round.’

‘For developers who are promoting and selling on a new building, they want LEED Platinum, they want the best of BREEAM,’ agreed Colin. ‘But we’re finding, with deep analysis of the WELL Standard and all of these things, the client wants gold on everything. Because they can charge more for their building or promote it more.

‘We’re seeing there are a lot of conflicts between each of the different standards. But, WELL in particular and LEED, we’re seeing a good virtual loop, let’s say, of getting the recycling and the entire idea of packaging and embodied carbon as part of those standards,’ he added. ‘As soon as you meet a client, it is about understanding ‘what is their genuine level?’. [That] it is not just the tick box exercising,’ Colin continued.

‘We’ll negotiate with them from the beginning about how carbon zero or energy exemplar they want to be. Because we can introduce them then to different levels of energy “fascism” and say, “look you could have a really unpleasant building here that argues with all the occupants but you save lots of energy”. Or do you want to put the occupants first? Do you want a comfortable space? Where are your priorities Mr Client?

‘And that will tell us we can deliver a darker project, one with more daylight, but it is that attitude to energy and strictness and policy of the client to its occupants that is the first thing we need to know about,’ Colin added.

All images this page: Paddington Lawn at Paddington Station, London, showing BDP’s lighting scheme

Lighting and sustainability

‘Some people might say metrics might kill creativity but I quite like a metric! It gives you the boundaries from which to work within,’ agreed Kristina. ‘And then, as you say Colin, you can describe what that might look like if you’re looking to implement “this” metric for example, and what you’re going to achieve within that boundary.’

MANAGING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

It also needed to be about managing clients’ expectations, emphasised Carmela, especially when it came to money. ‘A client comes and says, “we want to have everything environmentally friendly”, all the materials, all the lighting. And so you spend lots of time and then you arrive at the cost point, and the client says, “oh let’s just buy something cheap from China”,’ she said.

‘Hopefully, if you can get them on board with your principle, your philosophy of your design – almost like brainwashing them as you start at the earlier stages – that can filter through right down to the end, which is the tricky part,’ agreed Kristina.

‘If you can get them onboard with your

idea, your journey – and that term journey can be helpful because a lot of the time even when you’re just describing the way the space is going to look, but when you start talking about some of the technical aspects,’ she added.

‘That’s the thing,’ echoed Colin. ‘You must have the architects and the clients signing up to this and wanting it. If you’re the lighting designer being the only one going “oh but what about TM66?” you’re going to get steamrollered. It’s not going to work.’

INDUSTRY COMMITMENT

As the discussion came to a close, the panel emphasised how genuinely committed the industry is to pushing and embracing the sustainability agenda. ‘No one asked for TM66,’ pointed out Kristina by way of example. ‘Us, as an industry, wrote it for the industry because we knew it was needed. And we’re leading it from every other discipline. So, we’ll take that, we’ll have that!’

‘I actually think this is exactly the right time to be thinking about systems that are going to last longer,’ agreed Carmela. ‘In

general, in periods when you have recessions, wars, of course goods cost more. But people do start to think more about the long term. With lighting design, we can push for this at the moment. We can say, “look you’re going to buy this system, but it allows you to have a lot of flexibility, it is going to last you for a long time, it is good materials, it is recyclable and you don’t need to think about it anymore”.

‘Yes it is harder now to buy high-quality systems, but I also think clients are a little bit more careful about throwing things away on day two. So it is probably the right time to talk about quality and sustainability.’

‘One thing we’re trying to stress is the use of less,’ said Colin. ‘We’re trying to use it to assist with our campaign of using fewer light fittings. But it does mean actually having to challenge and interpret slightly different standards. But again doing that in negotiation with the client.

‘If we’re able to say, “use less but of higher quality” that is something that we are finding clients are happy to take that on board. We’ve even been able to have ring-fencing of lighting budgets,’ he added.

Kristina Allison then concluded the discussion by returning to the fallacy that metrics kill creativity. ‘Our metrics [within TM66] enable you to assess some of the proposals of a design, for example, and therefore achieve lower energy, lower carbon, all of these other things. But also create beautifully lit environments – and it is all about that, right?’ she said.

THE PANEL

• Kristina Allison, senior lighting designer at Atkins Global and co-author of the SLL/CIBSE TM66 technical memorandum

• Colin Ball , lighting director at BDP

• Carmela Dagnello , principal lighting designer at WSP and a UK ambassador for Women in Lighting

FIND OUT MORE

You can watch all the LiGHT22 panel discussions by scanning the qr code below:

Spring 2023

Module A – 13 February

Module B – 20 March

Module C – 22 May

Contact: angela@theilp.org.uk

Autumn 2023

Module A – 25 September

Module B – 16 October

Module C – 13 November

Why not kick start your lighting learning journey today

Scan to book your place

Scan for more information

GO FOR GREEN

Moving

economy approach,

By Simon Fisher

In writing this article, I have assumed –and sincerely hope – that anyone reading this is now aware of the principles of a circular economy and understands that moving away from a linear, take, make, waste economy is an objective worth delivering.

Globally, embracing a circular economy that changes the traditional model of production and consumption by sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials contains many challenges, most of which require both a systemic and individual mindset change which many will find challenging.

It is a task so vast that, if one stops and looks at the challenge in its entirety, one would be tempted to consider it too large to tackle.

The lighting industry is responding to the needs of a circular economy, developing tools and metrics that aim to promote and support keeping products, materials, equipment and infrastructure in use for longer, thus improving the productivity of these resources.

As has been reported previously in Lighting Journal, in late 2021, CIBSE and The Society of Light and Lighting (SLL) launched a ‘beta’ release of TM66, A Circular EconomyAssessmentMethod (CEAM) for lighting products [1]

This methodology is specifically targeted towards circular economy principles, and is rapidly becoming a key metric for specification and manufacturing in the future.

In TM66, the CEAM is designed to turn a complex subject into an easy-to-understand

scoring system, giving manufacturers and specifiers targeted, useable, independent metrics to compare products and strive for improvement.

To recap, there are two parts to the document:

1. Circular Economy Assessment Method – Specify

This is a triage tool for lighting designers, specifiers and engineers, allowing the quick comparison of two or more products. This will inform the specifier to make and maintain lighting project specifications based on a circularity metric, alongside energy efficiency, lighting quality and consistency and, of course, cost.

to a genuine circular

in particular embracing tools such as CIBSE’s TM66, can involve challenging your client to think in new ways. But it is something we’re going to have to get used to

Lighting and sustainability

2. Circular Economy Assessment Method – Make

This is a comprehensive tool allowing original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) fully to engage with the depth of detail required to create a fully circular economy-capable product.

First, full disclosure, however – I am something of an evangelist here! I have been credited as a contributor to TM66, I sit on the LIA’s technical committee for the circular economy, I’m part of the European CENELEC working group (TC34 WG02) for circular economy and part of the author group for British Standard BS8887, the standard being developed for the remanufacture of luminaires.

I’ve worked with Recolight to curate and deliver one-day CPD-registered workshops on ‘Lighting product design for a circular economy’, which have been delivered to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) across the UK and Europe. F Mark is also partnered with The Regen Initiative ( www.theregeninitiative.com ), which works to create scalable circular lighting projects by remanufacturing old product to contain new LED sources.

Having said that, and while acknowledging that this document is still at beta release, I firmly believe we now have found a tool that very much can be utilised as a benchmark for analysis between two products.

WORKING TOWARDS A FULL-RELEASE ASSESSMENT MODEL

TM66 is a self-assessment tool and, as such, will always be open to misrepresentation by OEMs, who may ‘flex’ the response to a question to gain as good a score as possible.

To help mitigate this, there are now also schemes in development which will provide third-party assessment and verification of the scores calculated to provide enough market surveillance to keep everyone honest (or honest enough!).

It’s worth pointing out, too, that a working group has already been established to capture early feedback from the beta release and develop TM66 to a full-release model. Like the circular economy, the outcomes will only improve over time.

Moreover, TM66 has very much captured the imagination of our specification community. It feels like there is an eagerness to ‘do the right thing’ with regards to lighting specification and supply.

Product designers are being challenged by lighting designers; lighting designers are being challenged by consulting engineers; consulting engineers are being challenged by architects; architects are being challenged by building owners. And, ultimately, UK plc has to demonstrate a path to net zero by 2050.

It would seem, therefore, that product design is like the plankton of the lighting industry. Embedding circular principles at the earliest stage will help develop and strengthen circular resilience throughout manufacturers, specifiers, architects, countries and the entire world.

In the EU’s ‘Green Week’ in 2021, a statistic was published stating that 80% of the environmental impact of any product is determined in its design phase [2]

As a product designer to the lighting industry, I have realised that, whilst I had always designed responsibly and sustainably, I now feel a further obligation to minimise waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use and help regenerate natural systems where possible. And TM66 has allowed me to do that.

CIRCULAR PATHWAYS

I can create circular pathways in the development process and clearly demonstrate the cause and effect of design decisions that affect circularity.

For starters, I no longer design a ‘single use’ lighting product. That, in itself, is a huge shift in thinking and requires buy-in on a companywide level. For my clients, this

This page and overleaf. Images from the Recolight workshops (with Simon Fisher third from left)

Lighting and sustainability

requires a wider-angle lens to be fitted to the design and marketing efforts of the company.

Design decisions no longer relate to just a single product being designed in isolation but have the potential to link to multiple product platforms which contain common components, features and principles.

I can start with a blank sheet of paper (100% recycled, of course!) and develop a product for multiple uses, with components that are intended for use in multiple products.

For some of my clients, this will be the first time they have been challenged to think this way.

For instance, I can demonstrate the cause and effect of decisions relating to many factors, such as:

• Material specification for component production

• The type of production method for each component

• Material marking so that, at the end of a use phase, they are easily identified for reuse, repurpose or, ultimately, recycling

• If I use plastic (this is not a plastic-bashing article, we cannot escape the need immediately!), which plastic do I use to minimise the environmental impact?

• Can I use bioplastics instead of oilbased products?

• Where I procure components

• The method of assembly

• Whether I embed controls and diagnostics

Whilst circular principles can be embedded in the product design phase, these can very easily be eroded as the product is developed and moves through the engineering and manufacturing phases and onward to full commercialisation.

LET’S JUMP BEFORE WE’RE PUSHED

I am not suggesting that there is some malevolent force at the heart of every manufacturer trying to avoid circularity. It’s a fact that embracing circularity is disruptive and will impact every facet of a business.

I have repeatedly seen that the traditional key metrics for success, departmentally, within a business are at odds with each

other and the principles of circularity.

Changing a supply chain model from a global to a local, challenging suppliers to embrace closed-loop manufacturing, embracing late-stage configuration locally in each geographic region of sales, changing packaging from plastic to bio solutions, even reconfiguring CapEx (capital expenditure) approval processes to pay for it all will all be challenged and will have to evolve.

And why should we bother? All sounds like a bit of a faff really, doesn’t it?

Well, the simple fact is that we will be forced to do it! We have seen the first raft of regulation come into effect in 2021. The EU’s Ecodesign regulations are forcing manufacturers to state whether light engines and drivers are replaceable in luminaires. And this is just the beginning.

• Ecodesign will expand to include requirements to demonstrate circularity

• Carbon emissions will have to be calculated and stated

• Consumers will have the ‘right to repair’ products

• We will all have to substantiate green claims and demonstrate a path to net zero

• We will be taxed if we remain carbon intensive

• It will cost more to handle harmful waste and recycle materials

So, in summary, the sooner we embrace the circular economy, the better!

[1] TM66, A Circular Economy Assessment Method (CEAM) – ‘Specify’ and ‘Make’ – 2021, https://www.cibse.org/knowledge-research/knowledge-portal [2] ‘Sustainable Product Policy’, European Commission, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/scientificactivities-z/sustainable-product-policy_en; ‘EU Green Week 2021 achieves wide-scale mobilization for healthier people and planet’, June 2021, https://environment.ec.europa. eu/news/eu-green-week-2021-zero-pollution-conclusions-2021-06-04_en

Simon Fisher is founder and director of the UK-based design consultancy F Mark

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ILP IS HERE TO HELP AND SUPPORT YOU, THE MEMBER’

Some businesses of course are very good at encouraging their more junior people to take the time to attend CPD events, but there are a lot who just want their staff in doing the work, which is also very understandable.

The Covid pandemic has of course been good in terms of pushing forward online content; we have all got very familiar and comfortable with attending CPD events online.

So our goal, our hope, for 2023 is to get at least one CPD event online every month for the London area whilst at the same time planning some good in-person ones where we all physically get together. We, for example, had a very well-attended online event in January on TM66. It is just about having that blended mix.

By Peter Burbidge

At ILP London (London LDC) our focus for 2023 is really very simple: to get good CPD out regularly to the members. That’s going to be through a combination of in-person face-toface events but also online sessions that everyone can attend, wherever they are.

This is obviously building on the change that happened during Covid. But the reason for this mix is that we find, although of course we want to get people to the physical events and it is great to do so, often the logistics can be difficult. People are busy, it may be hard to get the time off (either work or personal); a lot of the junior members in particular can struggle to get approval to take the time out to go to a face-to-face event, however valuable.

MIX OF TECHNICAL AND SOCIAL

Our face-to-face events will tend to be a mix of technical and social – we recognise that getting to meet, catching up, having a chat, making new contacts is an important part of being an effective lighting professional. But, also, it is important to have a good and up-todate technical background, which is why attending technical events and keeping yourself up to speed on things is so important.

Everyone in their working lives needs a bit of time out of the office. So, I think these events give people a bit of breathing space and the time to learn something, to reflect, but also to speak to other people who are doing the same thing they’re doing; getting ideas and fresh perspectives.

We’re also lucky in that our face-to-face events will often be well-attended. We

WHAT’S COMING UP

To find out more about what’s going on at LDC London go to https://theilp.org. uk/branch/ilp-london/

You can also make sure you hear all about events organised by your local branch’s volunteers by logging into your ‘MyILP’ portal and setting your communication preferences.

normally have 100+ who attend. So come along and join in!

If, during 2023, we can promote and enable these kinds of conversations and connections – make them the backdrop of having a CPD event – that will be all to the good.

Internally, like most of the LDCs we’re always on the hunt for new people willing to get involved. We would love to have a more diverse committee, for example, one that better reflects London itself. There are also a number of roles vacant on the committee that it would be great to be able to fill with new volunteers.

Ultimately, whether we’re talking the team at Rugby or your local LDC, the ILP is here to help and support you, the member. So please don’t be shy, engage with us! We’d love to hear from members, whether it’s events you’d like to see happening, questions around your job role or perhaps an issue you’re having with a client (and it can all be anonymised) we’re here to help.

‘THE

WHO’S WHO

Robert Fuller, infrastructure

Peter Burbidge, chair

Nathan French, past chair

Graham Skinner, education

Ryan McGibbon, local government

Matthew Fisher, vice chair

David Hollingsworth, Technical Paul Murphy, architectural

Darren Horrobin, secretary

Ian Cowham, membership

Simone Rossi, products

Stefan Stratta, contracting

Supporting members: David Long, Perry Hazell, Ken Seeley Government and policy and YLP representative positions are both vacant at the moment

LDC London is aiming for a busy year of both face-to-face and online technical events, plus trying to combine the value of networking and socialising with technical knowledge

Peter Burbidge is chair of LDC London as well as head of commercial at DW Windsor

We are one of the smaller LDCs but nevertheless do, I feel, have a very important role in that we keep Scotland on the map when it comes to lighting professionals.

Geographically, because we’re stuck up out of the way a bit, ILP members in Scotland don’t tend to get much of a chance to go to events down south, so it is really valuable to be able to keep lighting engineers here in touch with the industry.

At the same time, I feel passionate about

the need to be keeping in touch with each other. It is really important that, as lighting engineers or designers, as manufacturers or specifiers, we keep talking to each other.

So, LDC Scotland is very much a forum for people to approach and get to know each other, to ask if there’s anything they would like to learn more about. Or if there’s something if they’re not quite sure about, perhaps we can get some technical papers or to even get an event set up for them. We can also of course help if members want to raise anything with the ILP in Rugby as well.

I’d say the vast majority of our events are focused on exterior lighting, probably about 90%. But we do at our technical events encourage other people to attend, not just local authorities, but manufacturers, suppliers as well; we’re keen of course to engage with ILP lighting design members in Scotland too.

MAY TECHNICAL SESSION

Because of Covid, a lot of our activity has, naturally, been online for the last three years. Going forward, we are hoping that that will change during 2023. In fact, we are planning to have a face-to-face technical session, probably in May (though the date has yet to be fully confirmed) which will be an all-day event. The aim is to have four technical papers presented as well as some sort of social/networking element.

We do have some vacancies on our committee and so, if you are interested, please do

get in touch to find out how you can help!

I’ve always been a member of the ILP, ever since I started in street lighting. Ultimately, the ILP keeps us all up to date on technical issues or anything that you need to know that is coming along – and your local LDC is your ILP ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground. So please use us!

WHAT’S COMING UP

Keep an eye out for details of LDC Scotland’s upcoming face-to-face technical, probably in early May. Go to https:// theilp.org.uk/branch/ilp-scotland/ for more details

‘YOUR LOCAL LDC IS YOUR ILP “EYES AND EARS” ON THE GROUND’

WHO’S WHO

Lindsey McPhillips, chair

Steven Francey, past chair

Stewart Thomson, secretary

Ray Clarkson, past chair

Derick Ramsay, events co-ordinator

Lisa Chiles, past chair

LDC Scotland plays an important role in keeping ILP members north of the border – and lighting professionals generally – up to date with what is going on in the industry and the wider Institution

By Lindsey McPhillips

Lindsey McPhillips is chair of LDC Scotland and senior street lighting engineer, Street Lighting Operations, City of Edinburgh Council

‘WE NEED TO GET YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED IN LIGHTING’

In our latest profile of young and up-and-coming lighters, Kier Highways’ Ben Steels explains how the ILP’s Exterior Lighting Diploma unlocked his career in lighting

By Ben Steels

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF

I’m Ben Steels, lighting engineer with Kier Highways and YLP secretary. I started working in the lighting industry back in 2014. When I am not working, I enjoy music and playing guitar.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO LIGHTING?

I did a construction and the built environment diploma at my local collage. After I finished, I put my CV out on a job-search website and was later approached about a position of a street lighting design technician with Skanska. I interviewed and got the job, before moving to my current role for Kier Highways.

WHY LIGHTING?

A career in lighting is not something I had ever thought about until I started in the industry. I think a lot of people take it for granted. Then when I started, I saw how detailed and specialised it is.

I really enjoyed the office environment and the interaction between different disciplines in order to deliver a scheme.

Ben Steels at the International Green Apple Environment Awards at the Houses of Parliament, where his previous employer, Skanska, won a bronze award

Skanska at the time had the contract for my local authority PCC (Peterborough City Council) and I could see the difference the work I was undertaking was having on my hometown.

When travelling around the city I still think to myself, ‘I helped designed this’.

WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR ROLE?

I think when you start a new scheme with the customer and identify the obstacles and potential hazards then seeing it come to completion the most interesting.

Two roads may look similar but have completely different requirements or restrictions.

However, the thing I most enjoy in my role is mentoring new starters to the industry and introducing them to software and design processes and standards.

HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN ANY PROJECTS YOU ARE PARTICULARLY PROUD OF, AND WHY?

With Kier I am just about wrapping up the designs for the Shropshire LED replacement scheme that includes about 15,000 assets.

This has been my first major design project since I started my position as an engineer and have been working on it for about a year, with bits in-between. I have had to learn a lot of new skills and adapt to the contract and people I am working with.

At my previous employer, Skanksa, I worked as the design lead for a bat-sensitive lighting scheme that won an International Green Apple Environment Awards bronze award and travelled to the Houses of Parliament to receive this.

HOW

DOES LIGHTING INSPIRE YOU?

I like to think that the work I do has a positive effect on the environment, making it safer and easier to travel at night whilst reducing light pollution and minimising the effects to vulnerable wildlife.

I see lighting as a lifelong career and somewhere I can continue develop my skills and progress in this industry.

WHAT BARRIERS OR CHALLENGES WOULD YOU SAY THERE ARE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WANTING TO ENTER THE INDUSTRY?

In my view there aren’t huge barriers in place for getting people into the industry. However, I wasn’t aware that a career in lighting was an option until after I left school and finished education.

I think we need to get young people interested in lighting and increasing awareness when discussing career planning.

HOW HAS THE ILP HELPED YOU ON YOUR LIGHTING JOURNEY?

A lot of my lighting education was through the ILP Exterior Lighting Diploma,

Young and new lighters

which I completed whilst employed.

It was an intense few weeks with long days but pretty much tells you what you need to know. I did mine over three years, one module a year then my additional coursework. It’s also good for meeting and networking with people in similar roles to yourself.

Additionally, the ILP has its professional lighting guides and technical reports, which can be downloaded from the website and which I find especially useful.

WHAT’S YOUR AMBITION IN LIGHTING? WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE IN, SAY, TEN YEARS’ TIME?

I would like to be the manager of my own lighting team in ten years, delivering high-quality designs on a variety of schemes.

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR MESSAGE TO OTHER PEOPLE INTERESTED OR THINKING ABOUT A CAREER IN LIGHTING?

Why not go for it? There are good opportunities for progression and development.

The lighting industry is forever developing new technology and challenges. If it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, you will have developed enough transferable skills and experience to go towards other careers.

FIND

OUT MORE

To find out more about the ILP’s Exterior Lighting Diploma go to https://theilp.org.uk/courses/ ilp-exterior-lighting-diploma/

GET IN TOUCH

Don’t forget, if you’re under 35 or new to the industry and would like to tell your story during 2023, simple email LightingJournaleditor Nic Paton on nic.cormorantmedia@outlook.com or the ILP’s Jess Gallacher on jess@ theilp.org.uk. We’ll then send you a questionnaire to fill in and return with a photograph. Simple!

Ben Steels is a lighting engineer with Kier Highways and YLP secretary

LIGHTING CONSULTANTS

This directory gives details of suitably qualified, individual members of the Institution of Lighting Professionals (ILP) who offer consultancy services

HERBIE BARNIEH

BEng CEng MILP PROJECT CENTRE

1 AMERICA SQUARE, LONDON, EC3N 2LS

T: 0330 135 8950, 077954 75570

HERBIE.BARNIEH@PROJECTCENTRE.CO.UK

WWW.MARSTONHOLDINGS.CO.UK/PROJECTCENTRE

Efficient, innovative, and bespoke lighting design services from an award winning consultancy.

Experienced in delivering exterior lighting projects from feasibility studies to post construction services. Whether it’s highway, street, or public realm lighting, let us assist you to realise your project goals.

STEVEN BIGGS

IEng MILP

MILESTONE INFRASTRUCTURE

PETERBOROUGH PE1 5XG

T: 07834 506705

STEVEN.BIGGS@MILESTONEINFRA.CO.UK

MILESTONEINFRA.CO.UK

Award winning lighting design specialists, delivering innovative design, installation and maintenance solutions in highways, public realm, commercial and architectural environments.

Our HERS registered team provide design strategies, impact assessment, technical & certifier support.

BONNIE BROOKS

BA(Hons) BEng (Hons) MSc

CEng MSLL MCIBSE MILP

THE LIGHTING BEE LTD

EXETER EX4 1NF

T: 07840 054601, E: INFO@THELIGHTINGBEE.CO.UK

WWW.THELIGHTINGBEE.CO.UK

Professional independent lighting design consultancy providing designs for all exterior applications, including street lighting. Specialists in assisting at the planning application stage with designs, strategies, lighting impact assessments, and expert witness, with a focus on mitigating ecological and environmental impacts.

SIMON BUSHELL

MBA DMS IEng MILP ENERVEO

PORTSMOUTH PO6 1UJ

M: +44 (0)7584 313990 T: +44 (0)121 387 9892

E: SIMON.BUSHELL@ENERVEO.COM

WWW.ENERVEO.COM

Professional consultancy from the UK’s and Irelands largest external lighting contractor. From highways and tunnels, to architectural and public spaces our electrical and lighting designers also provide impact assessments, lighting and carbon reduction strategies along with whole installation packages.

LORRAINE CALCOTT

IEng FILP IALD MSLL ILA BSS IT DOES LIGHTING LTD

THE CUBE, 13 STONE HILL, TWO MILE ASH, MILTON KEYNES, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, MK8 8DN

T: 01908 560110 E: INFORMATION@ITDOES.CO.UK

WWW.ITDOES.CO.UK

Award winning lighting design practice specialising in interior, exterior, flood and architectural lighting. Emphasis on section 278/38, public realm, ecology receptor mitigation and supporting Councils with planning approvals, CDM2015 and SBD accredited. Specialists in circadian spectrally specific lighting design.

MARK CHANDLER

EngTech AMILP

MMA LIGHTING

CONSULTANCY LTD

READING RG10 9QN

T: 0118 3215636

E: MARK@MMA-CONSULTANCY.CO.UK

WWW.MMA-CONSULTANCY.CO.UK

Exterior lighting consultant’s who specialise in all aspects of street lighting design, section 38’s, section 278’s, project management and maintenance assistance. We also undertake lighting appraisals and environmental lighting studies

KEVIN RAMSAY

IEng MILP MIET SWECO

SWECO, EDINBURGH EH3 9QG

T: 07467685753 E: KEVIN.RAMSAY@SWECO.CO.UK

WWW.SWECO.CO.UK

Lighting and electrical design consultancy providing private and public sector innovative professional services. Specialising in Section 38, Section 278, RCC, highways, architectural, public spaces, car park, lighting impact assessments, Internet of Things, interior and emergency lighting, EV design. From planning to post-construction we provide innovative and environmental balanced solutions.

REBECCA HATCH

IEng MILP

WSP

LONDON WC2A 1AF

T: 07385 461143

E: REBECCA.HATCH@WSP.COM

WWW.WSP.COM

National team of specialist lighting and energy professionals offering the latest thinking and best client service across all aspects of lighting and energy, both public and private sector. Architectural, Highways, Environmental, Local Government, Electrical and Technical Expertise

STEPHEN HIGHAM

IEng MILP

SHD LIGHTING CONSULTANCY LTD

BOLTON BL2 6SE

M: 07834 490 192

E: STEVE@SHDLIGHTING.CO.UK

WWW.SHDLIGHTING.CO.UK

Outdoor lighting design consultancy specialising in street lighting and private lighting design services. We provide Section 38, Section 278, Car Park lighting designs, Commercial lighting and Environmental Impact Lighting Assessments and planning application consultancy advice throughout the UK.

ALLAN HOWARD

BEng(Hons) CEng FILP FSLL WSP

HERTFORD SG13 7NN

T: 07827 306483

E: ALLAN.HOWARD@WSP.COM

WWW.WSP.COM

Professional artificial and daylight lighting services covering design, technical support, contract and policy development including expert advice and analysis to develop and implement energy and carbon reduction strategies. Expert witness regarding obtrusive lighting, light nuisance and environmental impact investigations. registered personnel.

ALAN JAQUES

IEng FILP ATKINS

NOTTINGHAM, NG1 5FW

T: +44 (0)115 9574900 M: 07834 507070

E: ALAN.JAQUES@ATKINSGLOBAL.COM

WWW.ATKINSGLOBAL.COM

Professional consultancy providing technical advice, design and management services for exterior and interior applications including highway, architectural, area, tunnel and commercial lighting.

Advisors on energy saving strategies, asset management, visual impact assessments and planning.

PATRICK REDMOND

MILP MSLL IEng Tech IEI

REDMOND ANALYTICAL MANAGEMENT SERVICES LTD.

M: + 353 (0)86 2356356

E: PATRICK@REDMONDAMS.IE

WWW.REDMONDAMS.IE

Expert lighting and electrical infrastructure for all interior, exterior, and emergency lighting applications. On street EV charging infrastructure design. Authorising Officer and Live Working Manager for Local Authorities.

ANDREW LONGMAN

BEng (Hons) CEng MILP MIET

MHEA -Managing Director

DFL-UK

WINCHESTER SO23 7TA

T: +44 (0)1962 855080 M: +44 (0)7779 327413

E: ANDREW@DFL-UK.COM

WWW.DFL-UK.COM

Professional lighting design consultancy offering technical advice, design and management services for exterior/interior applications for highway, architectural, area, tunnel and commercial lighting. Advisors on lighting and energy saving strategies, asset management, visual impact assessments and planning.

ANTHONY SMITH

IEng FILP

STAINTON LIGHTING DESIGN SERVICES LTD

STOCKTON ON TEES TS23 1PX

T: 01642 565533, E: ENQUIRIES@STAINTONLDS.CO.UK

WWW.STAINTONLDS.CO.UK

Specialist in: motorway, highway schemes, illumination of buildings, major structures, public artworks, amenity area lighting, public spaces, car parks, sports lighting, asset management, reports, plans, assistance, maintenance management, electrical design, Lighting Impact Assessments and Dark Skies Compliant Lighting.

NICK

SMITH

IEng FILP MIES

NICK SMITH ASSOCIATES LIMITED

CHESTERFIELD, S40 3JR

T: 01246 229444

E: MAIL@NICKSMITHASSOCIATES.COM

WWW.NICKSMITHASSOCIATES.CO.UK

Specialist exterior lighting consultant.

Private and adopted lighting and electrical design for highways, car parks, area and sports lighting. Lighting Impact assessments, expert witness and CPD accredited Lighting design AutoCAD and Lighting Reality training courses.

ALAN TULLA

IEng FILP FSLL

ALAN TULLA LIGHTING

WINCHESTER, SO22 4DS

T: 01962 855720

M:0771 364 8786

E: ALAN@ALANTULLALIGHTING.COM

WWW.ALANTULLALIGHTING.COM

Visual Impact Assessments for planning applications. Expert in minimising environmental impact. 3D building modelling of light spill. Exterior and Interior architectural lighting design. Site surveys and lighting measurements. Specialises in problem solving and out-of-the-ordinary projects..

MICHAEL WALKER

IEng MILP CMS

MCCANN LTD

NOTTINGHAM NG9 6DQ

M: 07939 896887

E: M.WALKER@JMCCANN.CO.UK

WWW.MCCANN-LTD.CO.UK

Design for all types of exterior lighting including street lighting, car parks, floodlighting, decorative lighting, and private lighting. Independent advice regarding light trespass, carbon reduction and invest to save strategies. Asset management, data capture, inspection and testing services available.

PETER WILLIAMS

EngTech AMILP

WILLIAMS LIGHTING CONSULTANTS LTD.

OFFICE 6, STONEHOUSE BUSINESS CENTRE, 1A MIDDLE ROW, CHIPPING NORTON, OX7 5NH

T: 01608 642530 E: PETER.WILLIAMS@WLCLIGHTING.CO.UK

WWW.WLCLIGHTING.CO.UK

Specialists in the preparation of quality and effective street lighting design solutions for Section 38, Section 278 and other highway projects. We also prepare lighting designs for other exterior applications. Our focus is on delivering solutions that provide best value.

Neither Lighting Journal nor the ILP is responsible for any services supplied or agreements entered into as a result of this listing

Celebrating a Century of British Manufacturing

Celebrating a Century of British Manufacturing

CU Phosco have had 100 award-winning years of illuminating roads, motorways, airports, ports, shopping centres, housing estates and sports stadiums - throughout the world.

A century ago, Charles Albert Marques M.B.E, founded Concrete Utilities.

As we celebrate the past and reflect on how far we’ve come, we’d like to take a moment to thank all of our wonderful customers, suppliers, partners and industry friends who have supported us over this incredible journey.

Here’s to the next 100!