Lighting for the Future...

Sustainable design is more than using energy efficient products – it is the complete cycle of raw materials into the building. Including manufacturing and transportation of construction products, carbon footprint, and recycling of materials, as well as the resources out of the building, like waste water and paper.

Sustainable design as applied to architectural building construction involves multiple principles-

• Economy of Resources – Reduction, reuse and recycling of the natural resources that are input to a building. This includes energy, water and material conservation.
• Life Cycle Design - provides a methodology for analyzing the building process and its impact on the environment. This would include pre-building, building and post-building phases.
• Humane Design focuses on the interactions between humans and the built environment.

There are many opportunities to provide sustainable lighting design and products in today's buildings. These include...

• Selecting products by manufacturers using efficient and sustainable manufacturing processes
• Using energy efficient lighting sources for watts/square foot reduction while maintaining quality of light
• Using effective lighting systems to provide high “seeability” in work areas
• Provide comfortable ratios of luminance for a balanced visual environment
• Provide an effective controls strategy to turn off lighting in unoccupied spaces and take advantage of available daylight
• Reducing light trespass and wasted uplight in outdoor lighting systems
• Recycling lamps and ballasts at end of life