In search of the green light

There is more to sustainability than the energy consumption of the lamp, but how easy is it to get hold of data on the embodied energy of the luminaire itself, the transport energy of importing from abroad and the recyclability of components? Andrew Brister reports

Sometimes it’s not easy being a lighting designer. Your client wants the scheme to be truly sustainable. You can boast about the lighting scheme’s low energy consumption, but what can you tell the client about the energy used in manufacture of the luminaires you want to specify? There’s so little information out there. And even less about issues such as the transport energy involved in importing from abroad, how much of the luminaire is made from recycled materials, or how much could be recycled at the end of its life.

Information

“The sustainable lighting product is still a pretty empty field,” says Kevan Shaw, design director at KSLD and director of sustainability at the Professional Lighting Designers’ Association (PLDA). “I think manufacturers need to be pressed to give more information on embodied energy and materials sourced in manufacture.”

Iain Ruxton, associate at Speirs and Major, knows firsthand just how hard it is to gather this kind of information. “We advised on the public realm lighting for the Masdar City development out in Abu Dhabi and had to justify all of our equipment choices in terms of materials, their life cycle analysis, could they be made locally and so on. That information was very hard to compile within the lighting industry.

“We need data on the embodied energy of products, where they are made, where things come from, but also what happens at the end - how repairable are they, how easily refurbished, how recyclable? To do that whole assessment requires a lot of knowledge and it’s not easy to source.”

Certainly, European legislation is proving a driver for change in some areas of sustainability. Two examples would be the WEEE Directive and the Energy Use in Products (EuP) Directive. Although better known for its attention to energy in use, the EuP does cover the whole product life cycle.

Software
Some lighting manufacturers make use of the EIME (Environmental Improvement Made Easy) software to evaluate products. For example, the software, developed about ten years ago for the electrical and electronic product sector, is used by Thorn Lighting’s designers to evaluate the environmental profile of its exterior products.

Of course sustainable product designs must make use of source reduction or waste prevention techniques. These cover any changes in the design, manufacture, purchase, or use of materials or products (including their packaging) to reduce their amount or toxicity. Source reduction also includes the reuse of products or materials. Thorn is achieving this in a number of ways:

• Marking products - for easy identification and removal
• Using fewer different materials and less material (lightweighting)
• Avoiding toxic substances
• Selecting better environmental or recycled/recyclable materials (eg pre-painted steel)
• Designing for disassembly and dematerialisation - making products simpler to take apart (eg using snap-fit connections rather than screws and quick dismantling of batteries) and making parts multifunctional
• Cannibalising reuseable parts and recycling returned goods
• Minimising energy in production, use and disposal
• Certifying manufacturing sites to ISO14001

Investment

Philips has just announced that it will allocate €2 billion for investments in green innovation by 2015 to accelerate sustainable business across the company. In terms of materials, it aims to double global collection, recycling amounts and recycled materials in products by 2015 compared to 2009.

Osram has carried out a revealing life cycle assessment (LCA) of LED lamps. This study involved a close look at their entire life-cycle - how much energy and raw materials the lamp consumes in terms of production, use and disposal, and the environmental impact involved in the process. The result was that today’s LED lamps achieve the LCA values of compact fluorescent lights and are, unsurprisingly, far superior to conventional incandescent lamps.

The relevant material and energy supplies were determined in detail for all the LED lamp’s components and production processes. Apart from a detailed analysis of each individual production stage, for LED chips and lamp housings, for example, these also include all necessary transports such as the transport of an LED lamp from its production site in China to its place of installation in Europe.

Apart from direct input of raw materials, the energy input, materials and emissions associated with the retrieval of resources are recorded. The results allow for conclusions not only on resource consumption and primary energy input but also acidification, eutrophication, the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and toxicity.

The study was done in collaboration with experts at Siemens Corporate Technology’s Centre for Eco Innovations and shows that with LED-based lamps over 98 per cent of the energy used is consumed to generate light. Less than 2 per cent is allocated to production. This has dismissed, claims Osram, any concern that manufacturing of LEDs might be very energy intensive.

Christian Merz, director of sustainability at Osram comments: “While this formally covers LED-retrofit lamps, it does allow one simple conclusion: the efficiency of a lamp/system is the driver for the sustainability of a lighting product, and this will hold true for the luminaire as well.”

Life cycle

WE-EF Lighting is looking at conducting a pilot study focusing on the life cycle of a standard WE-EF streetlighting luminaire package. WE-EF believes that the measurement and assessment of energy and environmental impacts of product manufacture will be mandatory for many countries within a few years. It sees the benefits of an LCA study as follows:

• quantified environmental footprint - knowing the full environmental impact over the entire production chain
• environmental hotspot analysis - identifying where in the product’s life cycle the greatest environmental improvements can be made
• comparison - an LCA model would enable comparison of alternative production methods or products
• environmental production declaration - developing a product-specific environmental score card

“For WE-EF, conducting a life cycle assessment is the logical next step in manufacturing,” says managing director Mike Hill. “In short, it is about improving the environmental product performance over the whole life cycle of our products, and communicating these results to the relevant stakeholders.”

So good news for designers then. It seems that some in the lighting industry are hearing specifiers loud and clear. It may soon be as easy to compare a product’s overall sustainability credentials as it is to analyse energy consumption.

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