Beyond Net Zero: Lighting the way to net zero carbon and beyond
A holistic approach to sustainable lighting
When considering the carbon impact of lighting a building, the operational energy associated with artificial lighting has the biggest impact on the environment, therefore the focus is increasingly shifting towards re-use, circularity, and the embodied carbon of light fittings. By taking a holistic approach to sustainability, we are able to create lighting designs that limit our impact on the environment and can be adapted and re-used in the decades to come.
Reducing the quantity of fittings
For us, good design is inherently sustainable. The biggest impact on carbon we can have as lighting designers is to reduce the quantity of fittings needed.
Understanding a client’s needs from the outset of a project gives us the ability to light intentionally. By working in tandem with daylight and taking a re-use approach first, the quantity of new fittings required is reduced from the start, which lowers the carbon created by a new building or refurbishment and allows us to place a focus on the quality of the fittings we specify. Fewer, single points of light can reduce the carbon footprint of a scheme. While linear lengths of luminaires have their purpose, they require more energy and material than single points of light.
Luminaires can be measured by both their embodied and operational carbon consumption. As the UK grid has not yet fully decarbonised, there is a need to find manufacturers who can provide readily available and independently verified information on the efficiency and the embodied carbon of their fittings. Larger manufacturers will often offer Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) which provide an in-depth analysis of the embodied carbon of a fitting. There are also TM65.2 reports which can be requested and offer the same information, but these are less clear and not independently verified.
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The carbon cost of a typical light fitting, by year of manufacture.
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To get a fuller picture, we interrogate manufacturers whenever possible, asking questions such as where is their steel sourced, and what materials are used in their lens coatings. We also keep an internal database of manufacturers and their sustainability credentials.
The sustainability of a fitting is not just measured in its embodied or emitted carbon. For example, the production of light fittings requires rare earth metals which can sometimes be linked to unethical mining and child labour. A growing topic in lighting is circularity. Most buildings change, adapt, and take on new tenants. There are many points in time where someone may want to alter the existing lighting scheme. By creating adaptable designs and choosing fittings which can be re-used, adjusted, and maintained, we reduce the probability of light fittings ending up in a landfill. Fittings can be re-used on an existing project or set aside and used at a later time. As we aim to limit the number of new fixtures put into new buildings, circularity is becoming an even more key aspect of our sustainable design.
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This article is part of our Beyond Net Zero whitepaper, which we launched in April. The whitepaper is a series of short insight articles and project case studies and is an encapsulation of what we believe as a practice, a summary of what we see as the state of the net-zero nation, and a statement of our intent.