The series of Recolight Circular Economy webinars has been attended by over 1,000 individuals over the last two years, with attendees from right across the industry. Participants have shown a great deal of enthusiasm and many practical issues and suggestions have been raised.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the outcome of the webinars, Nigel Harvey, CEO of Recolight said: \u201cIt has been really encouraging to see the discussions move beyond \u2018what needs to be done\u2019 and towards \u2018what is actually happening\u2019. There is clearly still a lot to do \u2013 but it is starting to happen. That gives me hope that we will increasingly play our part in tackling to climate crisis.\u201d Simon Fisher of F Mark added: \u201cits clear that there are many challenges to overcome to achieve a truly circular lighting industry. However, there has never been a better time to embrace circularity in terms of client awareness of the environment and the need to make significant changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray Molony of Build Back Better Awards reminded us that: \u201cThe transition to lighting for the circular economy is shaping up to be as profound and disruptive as the transition to LEDs in the 2000s. We\u2019ve only begun to scratch the surface of the challenges \u2013 and opportunities \u2013 it will generate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Practical steps to move towards a Circular Economy<\/span><\/p>\n With over 40 experts from across the lighting industry joining the webinar panels, many recuring themes were discussed:<\/p>\n \u00b7 Resource depletion will begin to drive up the cost of raw materials, leading to more use of recycled materials.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Recycling is not always the best solution!<\/p>\n \u201cThe natural conclusion to creating a circular economy for fixtures is to ensure that there is a route for those fixtures to enjoy further lives after the original installation.\u201d \u00b7 Several companies, including Recolight, have introduced new services to facilitate the reuse and repair of fittings. Remanufacturers have indicated they will provide warranties and certification of reused product.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Maintenance and manufacturing companies have an emerging opportunity to offer to remanufacture or reconditioning services.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Specifiers have a crucial role to play in educating end users about the importance of using products which embody Circular Economy principles.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shift towards a circular economy in lighting is a challenge but also a great opportunity. For specifiers, this is our time to take clients and collaborators on the journey with us, to awaken an appetite for re-use and re-purposing of luminaires. For all of us, there is an opportunity to re-assess our relationship with lighting, that could lead to a greater appreciation of it, and a greater understanding of the real cost of making a new luminaire.\u201d Ruth Kelly Waskett, Senior Associate at Hoare Lea and President of the Society of Light & Lighting.<\/p>\n \u00b7 BS8887 (the new draft luminaire remanufacturing standard) and TM66 (method to assess compliance of luminaires with circular economy principles) will both help end users and specifiers make the right product choices.<\/p>\n \u00b7 The industry will benefit from guidelines that identify best practice. The LIA have since created a task force and published a technical statement: The Circular Economy interim guide.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Reforms to the WEEE Regulations will incentivise re-use, and circular business models. Defra is considering setting separate targets for re-use.<\/p>\n Summarising the outcome of the 2021 webinar series, John Gorse, Technical Solutions Manager at Signify said: \u201cGlobal commitments on sustainability and carbon for the future are essential but we have to wait for them to be realised. This series of Webinars has shown what lighting can actually do right now without restrictive costs or new mandatory legislation. Smart LED technology is low capex, easy to install, and when applied correctly is sustainable, circular and immediately cuts emissions that have a real impact on slowing and stopping temperature rise and climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The series of Recolight Circular Economy webinars has been attended by over 1,000 individuals over the last two years, with attendees from right across the industry. Participants have shown a great deal of enthusiasm and many practical issues and suggestions have been raised. Commenting on the outcome of the webinars, Nigel Harvey, CEO of Recolight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17225,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lighting-Industry-starts-progress-towards-a-circular-economy_Recolight-press-release_shutterstock-image-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17226,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17224\/revisions\/17226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewnews.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJohn Bullock, Editor of The Light Review.<\/p>\n