14 minute read
CLIMATE CHANGE
Covid-19 may have had all the attention for the past two years, but it was only right it was the climate emergency, and how lighting can respond, that was centre stage at the ILP’s first inperson CPD event post pandemic, which coincided with the COP26 summit
By Nic Paton
For those of us living comfortable lives in developed western Europe, the reality of climate change and global heating can sometimes feel far removed, whether we’re talking about retreating glaciers in the Himalayas or Antarctica, wildfires in Australia or Siberia, or floods in, say, Bangladesh.
However, it is fair to say the reality of how – and just how fast – our planet is changing did begin to feel scarily closer to home at times last year. There were the raging wildfires in Greece and Turkey, floods in Scotland, Cumbria and on the London Underground (among other parts of the UK), vicious and seemingly more frequent storms and, of course, the catastrophic flooding across Europe, especially in Germany, over the summer.
As Nigel Harvey, chief executive of Recolight and standing beneath an image of the devastation in Germany, put it at the ILP’s special sustainability CPD afternoon in November: ‘Two hundred people died. Roads were blocked by the flotsam and jetsam of the flooding; bridges were swept away. I could have chosen images of the town of Lytton in Canada, which hit 49.6oC – in Canada! – and then burnt to the ground. Or I could have chosen images of the hurricane hitting New York that left dozens dead and subways flooded. And
JANUARY 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL 13
Lighting and sustainability
make no mistake, the same is coming to the UK. It is coming our way.’
We’ll return to Nigel shortly, who gave a powerful and thoughtful presentation to what was the ILP’s first major in-person CPD event since the Covid-19 pandemic turned all our lives upside down in March 2020.
LINK TO COP26
The event, held on 11 November in London, was deliberately timed to coincide with the day that the COP26 United Nations climate summit in Glasgow was looking at issues relating to cities, regions and the built environment [1].
The event was hosted by LDC London chair Nathan French, and ILP President Fiona Horgan opened the proceedings by welcoming the attendees. ‘It really is so very nice to see so many faces – a little bit strange; it has been a long time! But we’re really, really happy to have our first official in-person event,’ she said.
The first speaker was Melissa Zanocco, head of programmes at the Infrastructure Client Group (ICG), an industry group for large infrastructure client organisations founded as a collaboration between the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
Her presentation focused on a new publication, Our vision for the built environment, which has brought together more than 75 industry leaders and 35 cross-industry bodies to consider how the built environment can, and must, change [2].
That vision, she explained, was ‘for a built environment whose explicit purpose is to enable people and nature to flourish together for generations.’
The question within this that lighting needed to consider was what actions will be needed to align the lighting and infrastructure industries to achieve net zero, she questioned.
How, Melissa queried, can we generate the alignment that will create a vision everyone can sign up to?
‘It is only if we shift our focus from creating the built environment to the outcomes that are enabled by it that we can achieve the vision. And, in order to do that, we need to acknowledge that the natural and built environments are complex and interconnected systems that are essential to our wellbeing,’ she said.
‘What is important is how we use light to improve life for humans and nature. The infrastructure that provides the light should be focused on those outcomes,’ she added.
Wildfires in Australia have been a worrying example of climate change, as has been increased flooding in Cumbria (above)
Lighting and sustainability
ROLE FOR LOCAL AUTHORITIES
The second speaker was Alec Peachey, content director at the Local Council Roads Innovation Group. He highlighted research from the Local Government Association that has suggested nearly 300 local councils have now declared climate emergencies [3]. Net zero was therefore now very much a ‘must do’ rather than a ‘nice to have’ for local government.
From a local authority perspective, this will need to encompass embracing everything from EV charging points and infrastructure through to the conversion to LED and retrofitting of columns, better lighting asset management, active travel schemes, and transport decarbonisation, he argued. ‘The challenge is very much a cross-sector approach; it is certainly not one facet over another. It is very much about collaboration and the movement of silos,’ Alec said.
Local authorities will need to be identifying EV advocates within their organisations and working to break down barriers and silos, he emphasised. To which end, the Local Council Roads Innovation Group was itself creating a net zero working group to share best practice and feed into government. Terms of reference are currently being drawn up but within it there will be a lighting sub-group, he pointed out.
‘We’re all in this together, the time for action is now. It is time to turn the words that we have heard so much of at COP26 into actions; we can only do this by collaborating and working together. So please do get involved,’ he said.
NEW SLL DOCUMENT
The next speaker was Kristina Allison, senior lighting designer at Atkins Global as well as chair of the Society of Light and Lighting’s education committee [4]. Kristina’s presentation focused on a new SLL document, TM66 – Creating a Circular Economy in the Lighting Industry and accompanying metric ‘Circular Economy Assessment Method (CEAM)’ [5]. Both are designed to help lighting organisations make the practical transition to a circular economy approach.
‘One word that has really hit me so far is “collaboration”, and not just in project work. In order to achieve our goals for net zero, collaboration is going to be key. If we can take away that as one word from today, and take that forward, that will be very positive,’ she said.
Kristina also highlighted that, while the switch to LED has been a valuable – and important – answer to climate change by the industry, lighting professionals should very much not assume it is now ‘job done’.
Above: ILP President Fiona Horgan welcoming visitors to what was the Institution’s first major in-person event since the start of the pandemic. Below: Kristina Allison of Atkins (left) and Alec Peachey of the Local Council Roads Innovation Group
Lighting and sustainability
Some of the devastation caused by flooding in Germany over the summer, which climate change has made worse. Nigel Harvey of Recolight highlighted just how serious its effects could be for all of us
‘The first response to the climate emergency was to save energy by reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. LEDs seemed to solve that problem. However, did that solve the problem?’ Kristina questioned.
‘First-generation LED fit-outs weren’t always the best. In a bid to get the best savings and a push to get the fastest payback, sometimes the quality of light was sacrificed. And we couldn’t just change a lamp anymore; luminaires were enclosed, making even minor repairs or alterations completely impossible.
‘LED-efficient products do not mean they are circular products. They are important but not the same. When luminaires started to fail, where did they go? Landfill. Just 7.5% of luminaires disposed of are recycled. So, in the beginning, the energy efficiency story was “solved” by LED. But in some ways, it has left us with another problem: lighting and luminaires not aligning to circular economy principles,’ she added.
Most industry standards and guidance notes don’t address the circular economy or the issue of net zero carbon buildings, Kristina pointed out, which these new documents were now aiming to tackle.
‘This is a journey for both us as designers and specifiers in terms of knowledge and design philosophy. We need to be able to take our client on that journey, too, to get their buy-in at the different design stages.
‘Sometimes lighting or luminaires with circular economy features might not be the cheapest option. But the benefits go way beyond. We need to help clients see why this is the best solution for their project,’ Kristina added.
NEED TO MOVE TO A REUSE MODEL
The final speaker for the afternoon was, as we’ve already highlighted, Recolight’s Nigel Harvey. As well as his warnings, he had some equally dire predictions of the scale of the catastrophe we may be facing in a matter of decades if change does not come.
‘Do you know what really terrifies me? It is not the thought of the woodlands I love walking through being destroyed by wildfires. It is not the thought of flooding that will flood different parts of London, even in the 2030s. It is not the deadly heatwaves that will kill thousands or even tens of thousands in the summer. And it is not the increasingly violent storms that will affect us all,’ he said.
‘No, what really terrifies me is the gradual breakdown in law and order that will happen as a result of failures of crops. The Chatham House Climate change risk assessment report published in the autumn said there was at least a 10% chance by the 2040s of simultaneous collapse of wheat, maize and rice crops [6]. A huge proportion of the world’s population depends on that.
‘When we think of the panic buying that we faced in 2020 when we were worried about loo roll, think what is coming our way when food prices spiral out of control and there is simply no food, or no affordable food, in the shops.
‘That is the collapse of our societies, as Sir David Attenborough put it. He said that in a documentary in 2019, Climate change: the facts, and that was what triggered me from being climate concerned, which I had been for the previous decade, to being a climate activist,’ said Nigel, who joined Extinction Rebellion in 2019 [7].
‘The more we, as an industry, all talk frankly about the risks we’re all facing, and the risks our children are all facing, the more it creates space for politicians to put in some of the tough decisions that they should be taking and still are not,’ he continued.
‘Those who are in positions of leadership, talk to your teams about the scale of the problem. Let it become part of normal conversation. It is almost like it is too hot to handle so we never talk about it. Communication is key; let’s all talk about it.
‘Energy efficiency is great, but we’ve done that; that was the last decade’s job. This decade is about moving on from energy efficiency, and it is about materials’ efficiency. It is about making sure products are more upgradeable, repairable, have replaceable parts, and even can incorporate recycled plastic,’ Nigel added.
As Kristina Allison had highlighted, education was going to be essential to
Lighting and sustainability
The ILP panel. From left: Daniel Blaker, Nigel Harvey, Alec Peachey, Kristina Allison, Emma Cogswell, Melissa Zanocco, and Fiona Horgan
encourage a mindset shift among buyers and clients away from ‘new is best’ and to using more remanufactured products, Nigel agreed. Buyers and specifiers all needed to start looking more at reused, remanufactured product. Yet, he also conceded this transition was unlikely to succeed without incentives and commercial nudges.
‘The commercials have to work. Everybody in the chain has to make a buck out of this; that is something we have to recognise and make sure it works. Without that, it will fail,’ he said.
‘Is it an impossible task? I really hope not. But it will be challenging, undoubtedly. It is about a mindset change for the industry,’ Nigel said. The CPD afternoon concluded with a panel discussion where the event’s four speakers were joined by Fiona Horgan, lighting designer and founder of the skills’ body Skills Army Emma Cogswell, and Daniel Blaker, creative director at lighting design practice Nulty, who attended representing the Green Light Alliance (https://www.greenlight-alliance.com/).
ILP Immediate Past President Anthony Smith asked the panel whether in this new world of reuse, recycling and remanufacture there would need to be some sort of third party or middle-man organisation (or even a whole new sector) to help manufacturers facilitate and drive change?
Daniel Blaker suggested we could see QR code-based ‘passports’ to show a product’s origins and reusability. ‘It is a huge challenge that maybe needs to be approached from a few angles to try to make sure there is an end result; I think it also stems from the origins of the product. It will be an important step to have someone in the middle who can facilitate that reuse,’ he agreed.
Fiona Horgan highlighted how, in her local authority (Doncaster), there is already a focus on parts’ harvesting. ‘We strip the lanterns that come back in and keep all the parts. We have got a team now that have upskilled to repair the lanterns being housed themselves. So, it is really about doing what we can in-house, and the end user part as well,’ she said.
Alec Peachey suggested there was potentially a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ for lighting to be using this conversation to attract new blood into the industry. ‘Younger people want to make a tangible difference in the jobs that they do to achieve net zero. That has to be communicated much better, I think, by sectors such as lighting. It is an opportunity to do that so hopefully, in 30 years’ time, at an event like this we are not just having the same conversations,’ he said.
This was a sentiment that Emma Cogswell strongly agreed with. ‘Lighting people are very good at talking to themselves. Even the architectural people don’t really talk to the street guys, and the street guys don’t really talk to the events people. So, even just taking what we know out to the wider built environment is very, very important,’ she said, adding that there could even be a need for ‘reverse mentoring’ by younger generations of their older colleagues.
Charlie Wadsworth, commercial director at Light Projects, raised the question of just how difficult it may be to change the mindset of clients, especially in ‘trendy’ sectors such as hospitality where there is often a focus on stripping out the old and starting totally afresh.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ agreed Nigel Harvey. ‘That’s where it comes down to a mindset and a commitment. In a restaurant, they may want to have identical luminaires throughout. The mindset shift says, “hang on, let’s start specifying reused product, which may mean there will be some more quirkiness in there, but that has to be the future”,’ he added.
‘It is not just buying fittings; it is everything we do. The reuse of product, increasing the lifetime of products, is just something we’re going to have to get used to; that’s the way we’re going to be able to have a liveable planet in the future.’ he said.
‘We can’t just use new stuff all of the time; that’s just not going to work,’ echoed Emma Cogswell. ‘It is all about communication with the client. We are at the beginning of doing something new. So, there is going to be an element of going backwards and forwards and learning as we go along. It is always about communication.’
‘It is about changing culture again. We’ve got to change the culture. We need to be the change we want to see,’ added Fiona Horgan, in conclusion.
FIND OUT MORE
As well as being the ILP’s first major post-Covid in-person event, the sustainability CPD afternoon was streamed live online. That recording, including the main presentations, can now be viewed on the ILP website at: https://theilp.org.uk/ ilp-london-blended-event-ilp-sustainability-cpd-afternoon/
[1] ‘COP President daily media statement and latest announcements: cities, regions and the built environment day’, 11 November, 2021, https://ukcop26.org/cop-presidentdaily-media-statement-and-latest-announcements-11-november/ [2] ‘Our vision for the built environment’, IGC, https://indd.adobe.com/view/f2092c85-cd16-4186-9035e2a63adc2bf9/ [3] ‘Climate change’, the Local Government Association, https://www. local.gov.uk/topics/environment-and-waste/climate-change [4] An editing error led to Kristina Allison being given the wrong job title in the October 2021 edition of Lighting Journal, when she submitted an image for the ILP’s ‘Light at the end of the tunnel’ initiative. Her correct title, as highlighted in this article, is senior lighting designer at Atkins Global [5] TM66 – Creating a Circular Economy in the Lighting Industry, SLL, CIBSE, November 2021, https://www.cibse.org/news-and-policy/november-2021/tm66-creating-a-circulareconomy-in-the-lighting [6] ‘Climate change risk assessment’, Chatham House, September 2021, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021 [7] ‘Climate change – the facts’, April 2019, BBC iPlayer, https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ episode/m00049b1/climate-change-the-facts
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